Oobah Butler: The Digital Mirage

Trevor and Eugene sit down with journalist and filmmaker Oobah Butler, whose work lives at the intersection of prank and social experiment. From creating a fake top-rated restaurant to exposing how easily online systems can be manipulated, Butler has made a career out of blurring the line between perception and reality. Together, they explore the rise of “scam culture,” how algorithms quietly shape what we believe, and just how much of the modern world is built on illusion. It is a funny, unsettling look at how easy it is to fake almost anything—and how hard it can be to tell what is real. With hundreds of new sales every week, you can eat well for less at Whole Foods Market. If you haven't already.... Subscribe to the channel here: http://bit.ly/SubscribeTrevorNoah Or follow the podcast on your other favorite platforms... SiriusXM Apple Podcasts - https://bit.ly/WhatNowOnApplePodcasts Spotify - https://bit.ly/WhatNowOnSpotify 00:00:04- Fakenham 00:00:58- What Now Begins 00:11:53- Welcome Oobah Butler 00:12:39- The Greatest Restaurant Nobody Ever Visited 00:15:25- The Line Between Fraud and a Prank Is a Camera 00:17:30- Growing Up in the Middle of Nowhere 00:22:21- The Man Who Got Paid to Lie 00:28:14- How Vice Changed Everything 00:31:04- That Time He Joined the Jehovah's Witnesses 00:38:29- The Origin Story of a Scammer 00:40:33- Living in a Shed, Naming a Restaurant the Shed 00:47:07- Fully Booked for the Next Six Weeks 00:54:34- Number One in London and It Doesn't Exist 00:57:09- Opening Night at a Shack 01:03:20- We Trust Hype More Than What We Put in Our Mouths 01:04:00- Comments Are Making You Think Things 01:07:54- 40 Percent of What You Read Is Poison 01:40:50- Amazon Piss Energy Drink Number One on Amazon 01:48:25- Make a Million Pounds in 90 Days 01:56:09- You Didn't Make the Money You Took It

Trevor NoahhostEugenehost

Apr 16, 20262h 7mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,001 words

0:00 – 0:04
Intro
1. TNTrevor Noah
  [upbeat music]
0:04 – 0:58
Fakenham
1. TNTrevor Noah
  Where did you grow up?
2. SPSpeaker
  I, I grew up in a little village called Fakenham in, uh-
3. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
4. SPSpeaker
  ... in England. [laughs]
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Sorry.
6. SPSpeaker
  Sounds ridiculous, but-
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, I'm sorry.
8. EUEugene
  Fakenham is like-
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Why do you look at me?
10. EUEugene
  No, come on. You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that. Fakenham.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  Me?
12. EUEugene
  You seem like you're from Fakenham.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
14. EUEugene
  In fact, from now on I'm gonna say that about you. Ha ha.
15. SPSpeaker
  Well, look-
16. EUEugene
  My friend Eugene from Fakenham. [laughs]
17. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
18. EUEugene
  You've been Fakenhaming my whole life.
19. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
20. EUEugene
  You're a Fakenham if, if I saw one.
21. SPSpeaker
  I just... As you say this, I can't wait to clip that for my mom and dad.
22. EUEugene
  [laughs]
23. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
24. SPSpeaker
  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]
25. TNTrevor Noah
  This is What Now? With Trevor Noah.
26. EUEugene
  Solitary
0:58 – 11:53
What Now Begins
1. EUEugene
  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-
2. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, yes
3. EUEugene
  ... not a solitary anymore.
4. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
5. EUEugene
  So now when you're riding a bike in the mountains preparing for the, you know, during the off season-
6. TNTrevor Noah
  Yes
7. EUEugene
  ... you're not alone.
8. TNTrevor Noah
  Yes.
9. EUEugene
  And then when you, you have to fly to the Alps to go and ski every day to prepare-
10. TNTrevor Noah
  It's a big deal, yeah
11. EUEugene
  ... for the thing, you're not alone.
12. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
13. EUEugene
  And the... You know what I mean?
14. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
15. EUEugene
  'Cause the, the, the fundamental truth is-
16. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, you're gonna be-
17. EUEugene
  ... if she has to work-
18. TNTrevor Noah
  She won't be there
19. EUEugene
  ... she just won't be there.
20. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
21. EUEugene
  And then you will, you... Like, you know what it was like-
22. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
23. EUEugene
  ... comedy on the road?
24. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
25. EUEugene
  That was not-
26. SPSpeaker
  Lonely.
27. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah. It's, it's-
28. EUEugene
  Very. It's fucked. Make comedy is fucked
29. TNTrevor Noah
  ... the amount of comedians who committed suicide in, like, a random hotel room somewhere-
30. EUEugene
  Jesus
11:53 – 12:39
Welcome Oobah Butler
1. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, yeah. I liked it.
2. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, I mean, it didn't even-
3. TNTrevor Noah
  Pomp and ceremony
4. TNTrevor Noah
  ... it didn't flag up for me at all.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  You didn't, you didn't flinch once, Nick?
6. TNTrevor Noah
  No, I didn't flinch. [laughs]
7. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
8. TNTrevor Noah
  Uh, but Uba, welcome, man.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
10. TNTrevor Noah
  Welcome.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  Thank you.
12. TNTrevor Noah
  Uh, welcome to the, to the podcast.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  I should take this off the table.
14. TNTrevor Noah
  No, no, no.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  No, please.
16. TNTrevor Noah
  What do you mean? Why?
17. TNTrevor Noah
  Is it okay?
18. TNTrevor Noah
  You gonna drink from the floor?
19. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
20. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Well, yeah, I was... Couple of sips.
22. TNTrevor Noah
  We're just gonna like-
23. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
24. TNTrevor Noah
  He's like... [laughs] He's like through your sleeve. [laughs]
25. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
26. TNTrevor Noah
  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-
27. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
28. TNTrevor Noah
  ... you meet them?
29. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah. [laughs]
30. TNTrevor Noah
  You're one of those people where the first time I heard about you-
12:39 – 15:25
The Greatest Restaurant Nobody Ever Visited
1. TNTrevor Noah
  you created the world's most popular restaurant-
2. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
3. TNTrevor Noah
  ... that no one could get into.
4. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  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."
6. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
7. TNTrevor Noah
  "It's the greatest restaurant." It had, like, how many thousand reviews at one point?
8. SPSpeaker
  It wasn't actually that many, but it was, it was more the algorithmic hack. But yeah.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, yeah.
10. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  Like, it had put it at the top of the thing.
12. SPSpeaker
  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.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  Accident?
14. SPSpeaker
  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-
15. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
16. SPSpeaker
  ... the fact that it actually... I mean, you're, I'm interrupting you.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  No, no, no, you're not.
18. EUEugene
  No, no, no.
19. TNTrevor Noah
  This is, you can't interrupt me.
20. SPSpeaker
  No.
21. TNTrevor Noah
  It's your story.
22. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
23. TNTrevor Noah
  I was just-
24. EUEugene
  Trust me.
25. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
26. EUEugene
  You can't.
27. SPSpeaker
  You can't inter- can't interrupt, okay.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
29. EUEugene
  [laughs]
30. SPSpeaker
  I need to see, I, I need to understand where the jeopardy is, so I need to know-
15:25 – 17:30
The Line Between Fraud and a Prank Is a Camera
1. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
2. TNTrevor Noah
  But if you film it, and if you-
3. EUEugene
  Yeah
4. TNTrevor Noah
  ... if you have a camera where you're like, "So I'm gonna do this fraud"-
5. EUEugene
  Yeah
6. TNTrevor Noah
  ... then it's, now it's a prank.
7. EUEugene
  Yes.
8. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, pranks.
9. EUEugene
  It's in, like, between fraud and a pr- that's a-
10. TNTrevor Noah
  Hey, my friend, loophole
11. EUEugene
  ... that's a good one.
12. TNTrevor Noah
  Yes.
13. EUEugene
  That's a-
14. SPSpeaker
  It's a loophole.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, the loophole is you gotta say ahead of time to a camera-
16. EUEugene
  Oh, it's like-
17. TNTrevor Noah
  ... "Hey, guys, this is-"
18. EUEugene
  ... "Can you see?"
19. TNTrevor Noah
  So day one of planning this prank, then it's not fraud. [laughs]
20. EUEugene
  So when it's like, oh, yeah.
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Exactly.
22. EUEugene
  So let me get this right.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
24. EUEugene
  So if you are-
25. TNTrevor Noah
  Move your thing there so Hannah doesn't shame-
26. EUEugene
  If, if, if, if there's a camera and then you're just talking to it-
27. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
28. EUEugene
  ... then it's a, it's a diary confession session.
29. TNTrevor Noah
  Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.
30. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
17:30 – 22:21
Growing Up in the Middle of Nowhere
1. SPSpeaker
  [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.
2. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay.
3. SPSpeaker
  So I'd been in those contexts. I'd been, uh-
4. TNTrevor Noah
  Where, where was this, by the way? Where, where did you grow up?
5. SPSpeaker
  I, I grew up in a little village called Fakenham in, uh, in England.
6. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
7. SPSpeaker
  I know.
8. TNTrevor Noah
  Sorry.
9. SPSpeaker
  Sounds ridiculous, but-
10. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, I'm sorry. Fakenham is like-
11. EUEugene
  Why'd you look at me?
12. TNTrevor Noah
  No, come on. You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that. Fakenham.
13. EUEugene
  Me?
14. TNTrevor Noah
  You seem like you're from Fakenham.
15. EUEugene
  [laughs]
16. TNTrevor Noah
  In fact, from now on, I'm gonna say that about you.
17. EUEugene
  What now?
18. TNTrevor Noah
  Ah, my friend Eugene from Fakenham. [laughs]
19. EUEugene
  [laughs]
20. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
21. TNTrevor Noah
  You've been Fakenham my whole life. You're a Fakenham if ever I saw one.
22. SPSpeaker
  I just, as you say this, I can't wait to clip that for my mom and dad.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
24. EUEugene
  [laughs]
25. SPSpeaker
  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.
26. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
27. SPSpeaker
  Uh, no, I mean, I, so I grew up in the middle of nowhere, basically.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
29. SPSpeaker
  My mom's, my mom's family have been there for hundreds of years, got webbed toes to prove it and all that.
30. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
22:21 – 28:14
The Man Who Got Paid to Lie
1. SPSpeaker
  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-
2. TNTrevor Noah
  No way
3. SPSpeaker
  ... to, to, to juice their re- to juice their ratings.
4. TNTrevor Noah
  God loves you.
5. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah.
6. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
7. SPSpeaker
  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."
8. TNTrevor Noah
  No way, way, way, Oobah-
9. SPSpeaker
  Read some other reviews
10. TNTrevor Noah
  ... Oobah, you can't just skim over this.
11. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
12. TNTrevor Noah
  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.
13. SPSpeaker
  Great. Yeah.
14. TNTrevor Noah
  Right. No, 'cause a lot of people, they, like, people trust reviews.
15. SPSpeaker
  Yes. Mm-hmm.
16. TNTrevor Noah
  Do you know what I mean? And more than that-
17. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
18. TNTrevor Noah
  ... people trust well-written reviews.
19. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, definitely.
20. TNTrevor Noah
  You know what I mean?
21. SPSpeaker
  Yes.
22. TNTrevor Noah
  So if you go on, like, Amazon-
23. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah, yeah
24. TNTrevor Noah
  ... or if you go on TripAdvisor, you go on Google-
25. SPSpeaker
  Yep
26. TNTrevor Noah
  ... you go on any of these, the better written the review, the more you trust it.
27. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. Yeah.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  So-
29. SPSpeaker
  Ooh
30. TNTrevor Noah
  ... 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."
28:14 – 31:04
How Vice Changed Everything
1. SPSpeaker
  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-
2. EUEugene
  Mm.
3. SPSpeaker
  That, that, you remember Vice?
4. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, yeah.
5. EUEugene
  Yeah.
6. TNTrevor Noah
  I still love Vice.
7. SPSpeaker
  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.
8. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay.
9. SPSpeaker
  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.
10. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
11. EUEugene
  [laughs]
12. SPSpeaker
  But, like, it's such a weird thing to do with your time.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  Well, that's your fault. Don't come into-
14. SPSpeaker
  Eugene again. [laughs]
15. TNTrevor Noah
  Don't come to Uppercuts-
16. EUEugene
  [laughs]
17. TNTrevor Noah
  ... if you don't want to get an uppercut.
18. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
19. EUEugene
  [laughs]
20. SPSpeaker
  Pay extra for the uppercut there.
21. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
22. EUEugene
  [laughs]
23. SPSpeaker
  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.
24. TNTrevor Noah
  That's hilarious.
25. SPSpeaker
  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-
26. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
27. EUEugene
  [laughs]
28. SPSpeaker
  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."
29. EUEugene
  Oh, for the people.
30. SPSpeaker
  "Self-sacrifice. I'm doing it."
31:04 – 38:29
That Time He Joined the Jehovah's Witnesses
1. SPSpeaker
  Did another thing where I tr- I went door to door. I pretended I was journey- uh, joining the Jehovah's Witnesses.
2. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, nice.
3. SPSpeaker
  And I went door, door to door and, and learnt how they sell door to door.
4. TNTrevor Noah
  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-
5. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
6. TNTrevor Noah
  ... or, like, wh- how does that work?
7. SPSpeaker
  Well, well, the-
8. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs] I like that
9. SPSpeaker
  ... uh, the numbers-
10. TNTrevor Noah
  As if I opened the door. [laughs]
11. SPSpeaker
  The, well, it-
12. TNTrevor Noah
  No, I don't.
13. SPSpeaker
  No, no, you don't
14. TNTrevor Noah
  I genuinely don't.
15. SPSpeaker
  You know, it's, it's the right question because I was thinking the same thing.
16. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
17. SPSpeaker
  That's why I got interested in it.
18. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
19. SPSpeaker
  '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]
20. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
21. SPSpeaker
  Like, and I was like, if I could compete with them ... This is all over the place, I'm sorry.
22. TNTrevor Noah
  No, this is great.
23. EUEugene
  Please, go ahead. [laughs]
24. SPSpeaker
  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.
25. EUEugene
  Wait, where did you find Jehovah's Witnesses that were looking for-
26. TNTrevor Noah
  No, they found him, Eugene. Come on.
27. SPSpeaker
  [laughs] Yeah, they found me.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  They found-
29. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
30. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
38:29 – 40:33
The Origin Story of a Scammer
1. TNTrevor Noah
  This is great because-
2. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
3. TNTrevor Noah
  ... 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.
4. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. Right.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Like your origin story.
6. SPSpeaker
  Right. Nice.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  So you had it in your DNA.
8. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm. [laughs]
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Right? You got the grandfather who's, like, literally the snake oil salesman.
10. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, genuinely. Yeah.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  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.
12. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay?
14. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  You're the, you're the runt of the litter-
16. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
17. TNTrevor Noah
  ... so you're like, "How do I get attention? How do I make my way?"
18. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah.
19. TNTrevor Noah
  All right, so you got this vibe. Then you go to Jehovah's Witness training.
20. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
21. TNTrevor Noah
  The ultimate sales camp. So now you're learning-
22. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
23. TNTrevor Noah
  ... how to like-
24. SPSpeaker
  The field deposition
25. TNTrevor Noah
  ... how to sell people on a thing that they can't see.
26. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
27. TNTrevor Noah
  And, like, you just have to get them to believe in it and-
28. SPSpeaker
  Yes
29. TNTrevor Noah
  ... do you know what I mean?
30. SPSpeaker
  Yes.
40:33 – 47:07
Living in a Shed, Naming a Restaurant the Shed
1. SPSpeaker
  person. Oh, you're talking about the, you're talking about the, uh-
2. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
3. SPSpeaker
  "Nothing beats a JetBlue holiday."
4. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah. [laughs]
5. SPSpeaker
  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.
6. TNTrevor Noah
  Cool.
7. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, d- genuinely. Um, you had, you had to put, like, an address, so I just put the name of the road.
8. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay.
9. SPSpeaker
  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-
10. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, you got cover. Yeah
11. SPSpeaker
  ... it was a load of people who, six people who lived in the house, the main house.
12. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
13. SPSpeaker
  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.
14. TNTrevor Noah
  I love it. I love it. I love it.
15. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
16. TNTrevor Noah
  You're living. [laughs]
17. SPSpeaker
  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-
18. TNTrevor Noah
  Where have you been all our lives? [laughs]
19. SPSpeaker
  [laughs] It was like, you know these urinal cakes you get? And that was like m-
20. TNTrevor Noah
  Ew, no. Come on.
21. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
22. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
23. SPSpeaker
  Made, made that look like a pan-fried scallop, and, like, had it with, uh, food, like a s-
24. TNTrevor Noah
  That looked like a scallop. [laughs]
25. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, it does. It does. Put some honey on there. Uh, some stones from a fish tank.
26. TNTrevor Noah
  Man.
27. SPSpeaker
  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?
28. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29. SPSpeaker
  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.
30. TNTrevor Noah
  Right, yeah.
47:07 – 54:34
Fully Booked for the Next Six Weeks
1. SPSpeaker
  And it was the first time that a real person started, was-
2. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
3. SPSpeaker
  ... parroting the mythology to me. And, um-
4. EUEugene
  Hmm
5. SPSpeaker
  ... you know, I just said to him, "I'm sorry, we're fully booked for the next six weeks," put the phone down. [laughs]
6. TNTrevor Noah
  That always gets them.
7. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it, it genuinely does. It gets me. Like, this is it. It's like-
8. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
9. SPSpeaker
  I could have easily been on the other end of that phone.
10. TNTrevor Noah
  Easy.
11. SPSpeaker
  I'm not saying I'm better than that. You know what I mean?
12. TNTrevor Noah
  No, we all are. That's what I mean.
13. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah, exactly.
14. TNTrevor Noah
  It's, like, it's so funny how that, like, it always, doesn't matter who you are.
15. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
16. TNTrevor Noah
  Fully booked for the... When you find out the thing you want-
17. EUEugene
  Is unattainable
18. TNTrevor Noah
  ... has been overly wanted and it's gone-
19. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
20. TNTrevor Noah
  ... you can't, now you can't stop pining.
21. SPSpeaker
  Exactly.
22. TNTrevor Noah
  You can't stop thinking about it.
23. SPSpeaker
  Exactly.
24. TNTrevor Noah
  Do you know what I mean?
25. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
26. TNTrevor Noah
  Fully booked for the next six weeks.
27. SPSpeaker
  And that was, like, my mantra from then on. Just kept on saying that.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  Just fully booked for the next six weeks.
29. EUEugene
  Six weeks, six weeks, six weeks.
30. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah. Kept on-
54:34 – 57:09
Number One in London and It Doesn't Exist
1. SPSpeaker
  thing that's ever gonna happen to me."
2. TNTrevor Noah
  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?
3. SPSpeaker
  No, I, I thought I did. I thought I did. [laughs]
4. TNTrevor Noah
  You know what?
5. EUEugene
  You know those vibes where you're like, "This is weird."
6. TNTrevor Noah
  You know what, Trevor? Who are you?
7. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. I, you know, I did think, "No, I've worked hard to get here."
8. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
9. EUEugene
  The investment, the website, the burner phone.
10. SPSpeaker
  Oh, man. [laughs]
11. EUEugene
  The double life.
12. TNTrevor Noah
  I mean, you, I mean, you did all the work.
13. SPSpeaker
  Well, the funny thing is, is, like... No, go on, sorry.
14. TNTrevor Noah
  No, no. So, so now tips in. So now, now th- this, this is what I love because I remember seeing-
15. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
16. TNTrevor Noah
  ... the footage of the people, the, the night.
17. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
18. TNTrevor Noah
  The night itself. This was just like where I was like peak. So, so what-
19. EUEugene
  This is supposed to be opening night?
20. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah. Well-
21. EUEugene
  Yeah
22. TNTrevor Noah
  ... so this is, this is where you've changed another thing.
23. EUEugene
  Okay.
24. TNTrevor Noah
  I'll tell you what I've changed in my life.
25. EUEugene
  Okay.
26. TNTrevor Noah
  This literally happened because of you.
27. EUEugene
  Really?
28. TNTrevor Noah
  Literally because of you.
29. EUEugene
  [laughs]
30. TNTrevor Noah
  And then you'll tell the story of the night. So-
57:09 – 1:03:20
Opening Night at a Shack
1. TNTrevor Noah
  come to it."
2. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. It was, I mean, I lived in it. It was like a pretty much a shit hole. And, uh-
3. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
4. SPSpeaker
  ... it was, you know, it was a-
5. EUEugene
  Which was number one [laughs]
6. SPSpeaker
  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-
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, man
8. SPSpeaker
  ... real food.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Yes.
10. SPSpeaker
  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]
11. EUEugene
  [laughs]
12. TNTrevor Noah
  And then-
13. EUEugene
  Try having shaving foam on urine cake.
14. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
15. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
16. EUEugene
  See if you'll be happy.
17. SPSpeaker
  Oh, it sounds like a Balenciaga piece, you know.
18. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
19. SPSpeaker
  Uh, it's not them. Uh, but uh, and then we added, we had, uh, uh, two, um, American newlyweds from, from California.
20. TNTrevor Noah
  Aw.
21. SPSpeaker
  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-
22. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh
23. SPSpeaker
  ... eating on the banks of the Seine the night before.
24. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, man.
25. SPSpeaker
  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-
26. TNTrevor Noah
  Patrons
27. SPSpeaker
  ... celebrities who I had.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  Mm-hmm.
29. SPSpeaker
  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?
30. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, man.
1:03:20 – 1:04:00
We Trust Hype More Than What We Put in Our Mouths
1. TNTrevor Noah
  number one.
2. SPSpeaker
  No, it just made me think that we trust, like, online hype more than what we put in our mouths.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  Well, I thought you were gonna-
4. SPSpeaker
  Trust all hype.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
6. SPSpeaker
  Oof.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  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.
8. SPSpeaker
  Mm. Yeah.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Do you know what I mean? So even when you watch the footage-
10. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah, yeah
11. TNTrevor Noah
  ... when you see what's happening, I genuinely didn't think to myself, "Ha, what a bunch of idiots."
12. SPSpeaker
  No.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  No, it made me go, we take for granted how easily we all are manipulated.
14. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  We also take for granted how we think of what is and what isn't in society.
16. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm. Yeah.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  A- a- and we're all just
1:04:00 – 1:07:54
Comments Are Making You Think Things
1. TNTrevor Noah
  ... Y- you know what I mean?
2. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  We ... But, but, but I, you can take it to, you can extrapolate it to everything.
4. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  So politics is, is a simple example.
6. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  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-
8. SPSpeaker
  Mm, like 100%
9. TNTrevor Noah
  ... what are they making you think or not make you think?
10. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  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-
12. SPSpeaker
  Mm
13. TNTrevor Noah
  ... 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.
14. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  Because I, I realized at some point I was clicking on videos or posts, and then I would read the comments.
16. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  And I realized the comments were slowly shaping what I was thinking about it.
18. SPSpeaker
  100%, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
19. TNTrevor Noah
  So I would watch a video that I would think-
20. SPSpeaker
  Mm
21. TNTrevor Noah
  ... is funny.
22. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  And then I'd go into the comments, and people are like, "Disgusting, I can't believe that this is not..."
24. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
25. TNTrevor Noah
  Then I'd be like, "Yeah, man, that, that wasn't nice." Or I'd watch another video, and people-
26. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
27. TNTrevor Noah
  ... you know, I'd be like-
28. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah, yeah
29. TNTrevor Noah
  ... "Oh, man, that's..." I'd be like, "That's cool." And people would be like, "This is so lame. This is..."
30. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
1:07:54 – 1:40:50
40 Percent of What You Read Is Poison
1. SPSpeaker
  no, no, I-
2. TNTrevor Noah
  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-
3. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
4. EUEugene
  Mm.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  We would act a certain way, and we would think-
6. SPSpeaker
  Immediately
7. TNTrevor Noah
  ... a certain way, right?
8. SPSpeaker
  You're right.
9. EUEugene
  Mm-hmm.
10. TNTrevor Noah
  For the most part.
11. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
12. TNTrevor Noah
  People start putting regulations into effect. They go, "Oh, you're not allowed to do this."
13. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah.
14. TNTrevor Noah
  "You're not allowed to do..." If we found out that people, companies, actors, what, were poisoning 40% of our air-
15. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
16. TNTrevor Noah
  ... we would start acting.
17. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18. TNTrevor Noah
  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.
19. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
20. TNTrevor Noah
  We don't think of it, about it when it comes to this thing that we can never see.
21. EUEugene
  Mm.
22. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  And yet is almost more important than everything else in the world.
24. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
25. EUEugene
  Yeah.
26. TNTrevor Noah
  Your children are online.
27. EUEugene
  Mm.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  40% of the stuff that they're consuming is poisoned.
29. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm.
30. EUEugene
  It's-
1:40:50 – 1:48:25
Amazon Piss Energy Drink Number One on Amazon
1. SPSpeaker
  You end with the finger. Yeah. [laughs] That's bizarre. Uh, yeah, so basically I went and worked at this warehouse. Mm. I got a job there. Didn't keep the job. Uh, was, I was, uh, I worked there for a few days 'cause it was the closest warehouse outside of, uh, the one in Staten Island- Okay ... to unionizing. We went and worked there. We'd heard all this stuff, and now I was working with, like, Channel 4, which is like the BBC, public service broadcaster. It's like six months of legal work to get in there with a camera, you know? Mm. It's not, I can't just, like, start writing reviews- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... like now, it's, now I'm working in TV, it's different. Um, so we had to prove wrongdoing. We had suspicion of wrongdoing. We went in there eventually. It was crazy. It was like this dystopian, like you go, you have airport style security scanners you have to go- Oh ... when you come off the warehouse floor. And I, I worked back in Studley, near Fakenham. I worked in a car factory. It was nothing like that. You know, there's a level of respect that you have in a, when you're working in a warehouse even. In A- Amazon, it was- And privacy ... yeah, it's just like, they scan you like you're, like c- like, I don't know, going to, through, uh, TSA or whatever every time you come off the warehouse floor. And, um, they monitor you, so you have this score that, that, this is what happens. They, they, they, e- everybody on the, you have this thing that's connected to your account, and the more you scan and the slower you scan, the worse your score is, basically. Um, what else was there? Oh, there was a, there was a, another worker who actually went public after this but didn't wanna go public in, in the film, um, who left, had a, it was a couple weeks before I got there, before I started working there, had a heart attack on the warehouse floor, and then was, uh, had to leave in an ambulance to the hospital, and then, uh, got a warning, formal warning for leaving work early. Yeah, it's crazy. Absolutely crazy. And, uh, yeah, so it's this sort of dystopian thing. Mm. I got caught on the third day. Someone recognized me from my other work and pulled me to one side, and they're like, "What the fuck are you doing here?" And, uh, I got pulled off there. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was interesting. And then basically I wanted to do something about their workers. I wanted to come up with a stunt that would cut through- Yeah, yeah ... and would, would have a, a level of impact. So I, I was hanging out outside a lot of the fulfillment centers and noticed there were bottles of piss everywhere outside of the fulfillment centers. I was, it was initially I spotted them in, uh, Glendale, uh, just the one, the closest one in LA. In California. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just in LA. And then I was in, I did it in London, the one in Queens. Every single one I've been to, and I, I probably say exactly the same, there's bottles of piss outside all over the world. Um, and I stopped, spoke to drivers, and they told me that this was them, and the reason why it worked that way, I stopped someone else, and she was a manager who, a dispatch manager who manages the drivers, and she said, "The way it works is if you have 10 bot- if they catch you, you come back into the, the, after your shift, um, with a bottle of piss in your car, then you get a point against your name." No, man. "And if you get 10 points, you're in trouble." So the, what they do is, as they're driving back in, they chuck it out the window- Mm-hmm ... 'cause they think, "Oh, okay. Right. I need to get rid of it or I'm gonna get in trouble." So what I did was sort of, like, I collected a load of the bottles of urine, repackaged them as, like, a, one of those kinda new influencer energy drinks called Release Energy. And, uh, and then I actually- Release Infection. [laughs] Bladden. Okay, sir. So I let, no, no. Then I put it on a, I put it on... So yeah, we, we, as, uh... Another thing as well was, uh, we spoke to female drivers who'd got UTIs from holding it in as well. Mm. Mm-hmm. Like, so the guys would piss in bottles, they would get UTIs. And then listed it on Amazon as a drink. Uh, said what it was on the label. Didn't, didn't hide what it was. It was like, "This is-" Bottles of urine collected from Amazon drivers, and then I m- made that in the same way that I kinda did the restaurant, 'cause I knew it would be a story if it worked. Mm-hmm. Again, I didn't know it would work. I thought it would be flagged, 'cause it said urine, urea on it everywhere. It was listed as a drink, as an energy drink. Um, and I made it a number one drink on Amazon. So it was literally a number one drink on Amazon, on the platform. It became this big story, came out, went massively viral again, was covered everywhere. But what it meant is that people were talking about this story, that if it was earnestly reported- Yeah, that they didn't- ... basically exactly what y- Yeah ... the model that you guys have at the sh- had, had at the show was, how do you make people talk about this then? How are you gonna break- Yeah ... the spell of like... 'Cause Amazon's an am- the way they run their c- like, their u- user experience as a, as a customer is amazing. Yeah, it's flawless. So it's like, how do you break the spell a little bit? Mm. And I never once in the film said, "Delete your Amazon" or whatever. No. It's like, no, no, let's just like make people think about this thing. But it ended up being like a, yeah, it was crazy. And you know, it, uh, it ended up going viral, that stunt, when it came out, and, um, it was basically exactly what I w- I wanted it to do, you know? And I had this other whole thing about, uh, filling in potholes at Amazon's expense as well. Uh, like I basically noticed how Amazon, you know, don't pay much towards taxes, essentially. They, they d- like avoid a lot of corporate taxes. Like in 2020 they paid zero in corporation tax in the UK. So I, I, I, uh, and I thought, you know, Amazon still uses the infrastructure that the ta- our taxes pay for. Mm-hmm.
2. EUEugene
  Hmm.
3. SPSpeaker
  But they don't contribute-
4. EUEugene
  But they don't pay for it
5. SPSpeaker
  ... they don't contribute to its growth and maintenance. Yeah.
6. EUEugene
  Hmm.
7. SPSpeaker
  All fa- fair play, Amazon, make your money, do your thing, but you gotta pitch in. And like how quick can Amazon make a Prime delivery without the roads that our, that our taxes pay for? Yeah. Yeah. So what I did is I ordered a load of cement from Amazon, and then I went in, fill in potholes around, in California and in the UK and, and, uh, filled them, filled them in, and then I went down to the beach, filed for a refund, filled the packages with sand, and sent them- And then sent it back ... sent it back. [laughs] And they just gave you your money. They gave me my money back, and I remember telling, in the film that I, that I made about this, I tell my lawyer, and he's like, "That's not clever, that's just fraud." [laughs]
8. EUEugene
  [laughs]
9. SPSpeaker
  "That's just fraud."
10. EUEugene
  Where were you-
11. SPSpeaker
  Finally
12. EUEugene
  ... my whole life?
13. SPSpeaker
  Finally. [laughs] Exactly. The camera doesn't matter, you've committed fraud. But basically what I'd done, and this is kind of the, this is, this was to make a bigger point, was I, before I did any of that, I went and I made a, an offshore company in Belize that has very secret privacy, privacy laws, and I made a, a, an Amazon business account for that company. And then so technically the, the, the crime was committed by this offshore company in Belize. It was an offshore, offshore issue, which is the same mechanic that Amazon uses to avoid paying taxes.
14. EUEugene
  Hmm.
15. SPSpeaker
  It's like the same setup. This is, man. So yeah, I managed to get around getting in trouble by using the same way that they avoid paying taxes. And, uh, yeah, the name of the company was Hole Maintenance & Repair Corp, which as an acronym is HMRC, which is the British IRS- Yes ... basically.
16. EUEugene
  Hmm.
17. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. Um, but yeah, that was like, it, you know, th- that's like, that film two years ago, the first one we talked about, eight years, seven, eight years ago. Hmm. You know, in that time you have to, that sort of, I suppose, maybe captures how slightly the work's moved on. Do you know what I mean? Like you're kind of slightly trying to... I don't know. It's a similar thing, and I think the, the world has changed a lot in that time. Mm-hmm. I think that like now, where it used to be that, that, you know, I was creating these things that were like fictions that would somehow almost go up to the line before they go, they cross it, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I opened The Shed for one night only. When we opened The Shed for one night only, uh, there was a, a company in Dubai wanted me to open up The Shed in Dubai, and to make it a real restaurant chain and all that stuff. If I'd have wanted to, if I was just making money, I'd have been like, "Well, screw the film." [laughs]
18. EUEugene
  Just do those things.
19. SPSpeaker
  "Let's just have a, a chain of restaurants called The Shed and get a load of investment, whatever, burn it, w- would, make the, take some money,
1:48:25 – 1:56:09
Make a Million Pounds in 90 Days
1. SPSpeaker
  do whatever you want." I mean, that's one of the more recent projects you've started working on that I think has, has also given me a, a clearer view of how, how fragile the money ecosystem is that we live in. Mm-hmm. You know? 'Cause like it's also, it's another insane project, but you basically set yourself the target of making, was it a million dollars? A million pounds, yeah. A million pounds. So like 1.3- Yeah, yeah ... $1.3 million. In- 90 Days
2. EUEugene
  90 Days
3. SPSpeaker
  ... 90 Days. Yeah. Yes. But you, but you, it has to be legal. Yeah. And it had to be- Yeah, that's right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so this came out, does, two months ago. This is another- Yeah ... latest film for British television. But what it r- you know, that film, what it, it was a kind of reaction to, uh, hustle culture. Mm-hmm. You know? And like how much of our cultural oxygen is just around making money. Mm-hmm. And how much of that, you know... So here's what I, what I, what I don't like is, and this happens with various different, uh, fields and spheres, you know, is when people talk about hustle culture- Hmm.
4. EUEugene
  Hmm
5. SPSpeaker
  ... it's now been co-opted by a, a group of people- Yeah ... who sort of, 'cause hustling was a thing that a lot of people did- Yeah ... in like a really meaningful way. I, I know it sounds crazy to say that, but it's like a lot of people hustled. Yeah.
6. EUEugene
  Hmm.
7. SPSpeaker
  Do you know what I mean? We all hustled. You hustled. Yeah. Yeah, you hustled to do your thing. Yeah. Your parents hustled. Your- Yeah, yeah ... your hustling was like, "I gotta, I gotta hustle, I gotta-" No, you're right. Yeah, yeah. Really what this, this is, is like, it's scam culture. It's not hustle culture. It's scam culture, yeah. It's scam culture.
8. EUEugene
  Hmm.
9. SPSpeaker
  It's how can you make as much money as possible-
10. EUEugene
  As quickly as possible
11. SPSpeaker
  ... as quickly, but also m- most importantly, most importantly, with somebody else being the victim in some way, shape, or form. Are you selling some sort of online course? Yeah.
12. EUEugene
  Hmm.
13. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you getting people to invest in a thing- Yeah ... that will never pay money back? Are you, you know what I mean? That whole, and this is the thing that you, you're 100% right, and I think that the thing that's, as I said from the start of when I started doing what I was doing to now- Yeah ... the whole world's changed, and now we are living in the fake reality. Mm. Like we are all, we're all dining at The Shed.
14. EUEugene
  The fake has become real.
15. SPSpeaker
  We're, we're all eating the microwaveable ready meals. We're all eating My Egg On A Foot. Like, uh, the way that I see it, I look at the stock market, the biggest eight companies, how many of them actually, Nvidia apart from them, they make chips- Yeah ... how many of them, the, the, the value of these stocks now are, have no- No ... semblance to reality. No. It's like now the, everybody is making a shed.
16. EUEugene
  Yes.
17. SPSpeaker
  And it's all, it's, it's all been re- the whole economy's been remade. Like, no one's actually making anything. So it's like-
18. EUEugene
  Hmm
19. SPSpeaker
  ... when you were saying about, um, it, you're exactly right about the culture of these money, the hustle culture thing is the grift is taking place when you are convinced that this person can lead you to the promised land of financial security.
20. EUEugene
  Yeah.
21. SPSpeaker
  The moment, like, my mom and dad, when we were kids, were, um, lost a load of money in a pyramid scheme. Well, not a load, but enough that it was significant in our house. And, uh, a very popular one, um, which everyone would know. But, like, that, um, it, that, like, kind of made me kind of a little averse to those types of things-
22. EUEugene
  Mm-hmm
23. SPSpeaker
  ... when I hear about-
24. EUEugene
  Mm-hmm
25. SPSpeaker
  ... constantly having people say, "Oh, you should buy into this crypto coin."
26. EUEugene
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27. SPSpeaker
  "Buy into this, uh, this, this, um, you know, this, uh, course that can help you make a load of money and make you rich," or whatever. I've always thought the structure of the way that a lot of pe- pe- a lot of people are monetizing their audiences is like they're selling them hope, as you were saying.
28. EUEugene
  Yeah.
29. TNTrevor Noah
  That's, that's the, that's the biggest thing for me, is, like, it... And they, they do a good job of conflating it with the hard work that people are doing.
30. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah.
1:56:09 – 2:06:17
You Didn't Make the Money You Took It
1. TNTrevor Noah
  but you see, the, the, the sentence that isn't completed is, this is, this is what I like about these money stories. They say you would've made a million.
2. SPSpeaker
  Right.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  What they should say is you would've taken a million.
4. SPSpeaker
  Right, right, right, right.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  That's my issue with all of these ideas.
6. EUEugene
  There's no way, there's no way you made it, yeah.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, because you, you, you didn't make the thing.
8. EUEugene
  It comes from somewhere.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  'Cause if, if we look at, like-
10. SPSpeaker
  Oh, no, that, that's 100% right, yeah.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  But do you get what I'm saying?
12. SPSpeaker
  No, no, I know. I completely get what you're saying.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  It's like a lot of the time people make it seem like... The reason I would say people used to use the phrase, "You're gonna make money," is because really it was an exchange-
14. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah
15. TNTrevor Noah
  ... of a service of a good.
16. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  Of a service of a good.
18. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
19. TNTrevor Noah
  All right, I need a leather shoe from you, Eugene. You need oranges from me. And we're gonna use money to help smooth over this pro-
20. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21. TNTrevor Noah
  It makes, it makes sense.
22. SPSpeaker
  It's a promise.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, but then at some point it became
24. TNTrevor Noah
  I'm saying this is worth this. I'm gonna take all of your guys' money. It's gonna be worth this for a mo- and then it's not gonna be worth it-
25. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
26. TNTrevor Noah
  ... i- instantly overnight.
27. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  All I've done is I've gone and then sucked in all your money.
29. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, it's true.
30. TNTrevor Noah
  I've just sucked in all your money-

Episode duration: 2:07:21

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Transcript of episode 9BxDXUvtIRQ

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Intro

Fakenham

What Now Begins

Welcome Oobah Butler

The Greatest Restaurant Nobody Ever Visited

The Line Between Fraud and a Prank Is a Camera

Growing Up in the Middle of Nowhere

The Man Who Got Paid to Lie

How Vice Changed Everything

That Time He Joined the Jehovah's Witnesses

The Origin Story of a Scammer

Living in a Shed, Naming a Restaurant the Shed

Fully Booked for the Next Six Weeks

Number One in London and It Doesn't Exist

Opening Night at a Shack

We Trust Hype More Than What We Put in Our Mouths

Comments Are Making You Think Things

40 Percent of What You Read Is Poison

Amazon Piss Energy Drink Number One on Amazon

Make a Million Pounds in 90 Days

You Didn't Make the Money You Took It

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