Why Charismatic Characters Win Elections Now

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into the collapse of shared cultural touchstones, the rise of political drama as the new global entertainment, and the balkanization of media and communities. They discuss why TV culture is dying, why politicians have become the new celebrities, and how niche communities are shaping modern discourse. Plus, the Collinses explore fascinating trends in books, sports, video games, and even internet slang. Whether you’re interested in politics, media, or the quirks of online culture, this episode has something for you!

Episode Outline:

As some of you have mentioned episode outlines being helpful, here’s the episode outline we put together for this particular conversation (we don’t always have these—typically we only have them for some of the episodes that Simone leads). Thanks for providing us with feedback on this front!

Based Camp - The Last Show Left

Our present age of cultural balkanization limits the shared experiences over which we can collectively bond

Highlights

* Why is:

* Marco Rubio not a viable Republican presidential candidate, despite his merit?

* The Democratic Party floundering?

* TV show culture dying?

* Because we have entered an age of cultural balkanization and there are only a few common topics left over which we can now bond

* People today—at least Americans—share less and less in common

* For example, an area where we’ve lost common ground is with TV:

* Household viewership for top TV shows peaked in the early 1950s and 1960s, with shows like “I Love Lucy” and “Texaco Star Theatre” exceeding 50%-60% of households.

* Ratings trend downward after the 1970s, with the most recent top shows (2010s) drawing only around 11-14% of TV households per year.

* This decline reflects the growth in viewing choices and fragmentation of the television audience.

* We are no longer reading the same books

* In the early 1980s, blockbuster bestsellers like The Bonfire of the Vanities or The Da Vinci Code could reach up to 10% or more of US adults. In contrast, today’s bestsellers—even the most popular fiction—are typically read by just 1-2% of Americans.

* Fewer Americans are even reading a book: Only 48.5% of US adults read any book for pleasure in 2022, down from 52.7% in 2017. Just a third of Americans now read novels or stories, way down from past decades

* Despite this, nearly 4 million new book titles are published each year these days (when including self-published works)

* Compare that to 2003, about 300,000 new titles were published in the US

* We are no longer playing the same games

* In the 1980s and 1990s, blockbuster video games (like Super Mario Bros. or Tetris) could reach 30%–50% or more of all gamers worldwide.

* Today, even mega-best-sellers like Minecraft (238 million copies all-time) or Grand Theft Auto V (175 million copies) have only ever reached around 5–10% of all gamers over their lifespans, and at any given moment the “current” bestseller typically only engages about 1–2% of all active gamers.

* In-person MLB attendance is down about 30% compared to 15 years ago.

* We are not watching major professional sporting events like we used to

* average regular-season NFL viewership is down from peaks in the 1980s–2000s.

* NBA Finals 2025 averaged 10.2 million viewers—down 46% from its 2005 peak.

* Anecdotally speaking, at least 20% of conversation at the parties we host involves either our pretending to understand content or people being referenced or asking for explanations

* Meanwhile, hyper niche communities are flourishing, complete with their own dialect and slang

* E.g. the influencer accent, which uses a variant of the valley girl accent to better maintain viewer attention:

* Why does this matter?

* We have fewer themes around which we can collectively bond

* With the pandemic well behind us (which created this rare shared experience), what we have left is:

* World events and politics

* Technology / innovations affecting daily life (i.e. AI)

* The economy

* Health

* And all these are the top-discussed topics of 2025

* And this might be one reason why political polarization is so insane

* This has implications for

* Any person or group that wants to have broad influence or relevance

* How relatable you can personally be (if you can’t speak about these issues, your small talk skills will suffer)

But let’s explore in greater depth:

* The great balkanization

* The nichification of humanity (aka techno-feudalism)

* And the centralization of discourse

The Great Balkanization

Fracturing of Sports

* While major sports in the USA (NFL, NBA, MLB) see shrinking audiences, “niche” or global sports (MLS, international soccer, Women’s leagues) see significant growth.

Fracturing of TV

* The most popular American TV show in 1964 was Bonanza, and 36.3% of American households watched it.

* 30 years later, America’s most popular TV show was Seinfeld and 20.6% of American households watched it

* 20 years, later in 2024, the most-watched scripted show was Tracker, with 17.4% of American households watching—CAVEAT: This is households with a TV

* I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF TRACKER!

* A show about a professional “reward seeker” who finds missing persons for prize money—all while struggling with complex issues from his fractured family and past traumas.

Mixing of Social Classes and Cultural Groups

Different religious, cultural, ethnic, and class groups mix more today than before:

* Social media and the internet has been a big equalizer

* Immigration since 1965, changes in laws, and shifting social attitudes have broken down prior barriers, leading to more multicultural workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools compared to the mid-20th century.

* Nearly 39% of Americans married since 2010 are in religiously mixed marriages—double the 19% rate before 1960, and much higher than earlier rates. This means Americans are now far more likely to marry someone outside their faith and, by extension, potentially outside their ethnic or cultural group than in the past.

* In 1980, about 86% of undergraduates were white; by 2024, that figure dropped to 40%, with nonwhite students making up roughly 41% of undergraduates.

* Nonwhite student attendance in colleges and universities increased by over 185% since 1976.

* In 1960, nearly 90% of American workers were white. By 2019, the share of nonwhite, Latino or both workers nearly doubled to about 40%

Loss of Religion and Other Shared Norms

* Anecdote about Malcolm’s mother insisting he play certain sports and read certain books

* Weekly church attendance has dropped from around 50% in the 40s-60s in the USA to 30% today (church membership in general dropped from ~70-75% in 1940s-60s to 47% in 2020)

The Nichification of Humanity

* We’re going techno-feudal and we don’t even realize it

* People have a tendency to not realize that they’re in isolated bubbles

* Like: People on X.com get the impression this is what EVERYONE is talking about, yet only around 1 in 5 Americans are active on it (18% of Americans)

* Also, even that 18% of Americans on X are having wildly different experiences depending on their algorithms and the accounts they follow

* Elsewhere on social media, there are people who think that people like “Becca Bloom” are household names, and while they may be HUGE in specific niches, most people have no idea who they are

* As of 2025, about 73% of Americans use social media AT ALL

Patreon as an Illustration

* Random things you wouldn’t expect to find

* Software and software mods

* Horse training

* Vanlife inspiration (also sailing inspiration)

* The top 50 patreon creators include

* #2: Peter Boese, who has this to say about what he offers—tell me if this makes ANY SENSE TO YOU: I try to bring a life like look to Assetto Corsa (AC). Ilja Jusupov brought us many tools to mod AC. With his Custom Shaders Patch (CSP) many features are added to AC. One of CSP’s moduls, called weatherFX, made new graphics possible. With Sol i created a highly customizable weather system for Assetto Corsa. The next step of my weather and graphics system called “Pure”. It adresses many problems of Sol and brings new solutions.

* HE MAKES OVER $55K/MONTH!

* OK: Assetto Corsa is a highly acclaimed racing simulation video game known for its realistic physics, detailed car models, and extensive modding community, making it a favorite among sim racing enthusiasts.

* #8 The TrueAnnon Podcast, making over $174K/month

* Several D&D creators

* #38 TURBODRIVER, which just creates mods for The Sims 4 and has nearly 18K paid members

* #41, Fornax, who “creates pixeldrain” (some sort of filesharing software) and makes $58,960/month

Accents and Slang

* Major social media accents

* Female Influencer Accent (“TikTok Voice,” “Influencer Accent”)

* Male Gamer Accent

* Tradwife Accent

* Male News Commentator/“Podcaster” Accent

* Gen Z Nonbinary/Androgynous Accent

* Slang

* Do you know what a lightstick is and how it’s used?

* It’s a fan light unique to each group, waved at concerts.

* Do you know what it means to be Tatty blasted?

* (r/tattoo: Covered in tattoos)

* Do you know what it means to be mogged by someone?

* (r/looksmaxxing: To be outclassed in looks; if someone is much better looking, they “mog” others. Variants include “heightmog,” “facemog,” etc.)

* Do you know what an HF-HOA is?

* (“Homestead-Friendly Homeowners Association”—meaning a supportive HOA for gardening, chickens, etc., instead of “typical” ones that ban such things.)

* Do you know what pan porn is? Or what it means to destash?

* Destash: To declutter and get rid of makeup you don’t use.

* Pan/pan porn: Hitting pan means you’ve used enough of a product to see the metal bottom, “pan porn” means showing off your well-used products.

* Do you know what slackpacking is? Or what a Nearo is?

* Slackpacking: Hiking a trail section without carrying a full backpack, often because someone else shuttles your gear.

* Nearo: Nearly a zero-mile day; hiking only a few miles before stopping to rest, resupply, etc.

* What community has murderhobos?

* Dungeons and Dragons

The Centralization of Discourse

What’s left in discourse is:

* World events and politics

* Technology / innovations affecting daily life (i.e. AI)

* The economy

* Health

It’s not just “news and politics” it’s WORLD news and politics

* The number of local journalists has dropped by about 75% since 2002

* Over 3,300 newspapers—more than one-third—have closed since 2005.

* More than half of US counties have little to no local news coverage.

* Asmongold on why he covers world events:

* (more than half his viewers are from outside the US)

* Research highlights that large-scale international engagement with US political content has increased, particularly around global platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook

* For more reading, see:

* Social Media, Disinformation, and AI: Transforming the Landscape of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Political Campaigns

* An SMU data review titled: “The Prevalence and Impact of Discourse in Social Media Networks: The 2024 Presidential Election”

* Both articles note that foreign governments, including Russia, China, and Iran, are also pushing this along

What does this mean for anyone who wants broad appeal and influence?

* You need to know what is and is not in your bubble.

* Anything that’s not:

* World events and politics

* Technology / innovations affecting daily life (i.e. AI)

* The economy

* Health

* Is probably too niche

* Because these things are now the only show left, you need to understand THEY ARE FOR ENTERTAINMENT

* They were once niche, intellectual topics

* Now they’re our replacement for TV shows

* We’ve gone from wrestling to pro wrestling

* And we must recognize that

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I am very excited to be with you today because we are gonna talk about the last show left. We’re gonna talk about why Marco Rubio is not a viable presidential candidate as a Republican despite his alleged merit. We’re gonna talk about why the Democratic Party is floundering.

We’re gonna talk about why TV culture is dying and why really, there’s only one. Shared discourse we have left. So I will, I

Malcolm Collins: will summarize the point because Simone’s going off on tangents here. Essentially what we’re gonna be talking about is how. As the media industry died out and as the idea of cultural touchstone shows died out, you know, like your Game of Thrones or your, like, these just, we do not see these anymore.

There isn’t an equivalent running right now that everyone is broadly aware of except for mm-hmm. Maybe South Park. Right. But even, not even that, the fact that South Park is one of the shows, or the last one left sort of reinforces this point, which is what has come. As sort of the pan cultural zeitgeist to [00:01:00] replace all of that.

And that is the drama around us, politics, and, the presidential administration Well and

Simone Collins: world events, tech health, it, it’s basically that It, it’s it’s world news, which includes and is very heavy on US politics ‘cause that affects the world plus health and tech. So basically anything that, that profoundly affects everyone, that’s all that’s left.

And South Park is arguably only showing up and making head. Because its episodes are 100% on that. It’s on how AI is affecting us. It’s on shifts in health like COVID. Yeah. And it’s on US politics and world politics in general. But we’ve really entered this age of cultural balkanization. There’s only a few common topics left like those that we can talk about.

And I, I really wanna also dive deeper into just how profound this balkanization is, because I think it’s one of those. Boiling frog metaphor situations where people don’t realize just how in a bubble they are already in, like they, they, they assume that most people [00:02:00] kind of do the same things that they do and live a life kind of similar to theirs and are, are more relatable because they don’t really leave that bubble.

And so the, the impact there is that they also don’t realize that if they want to be broadly relatable, they’re going to need to stick to. A specific narrative. There are only some themes they could play with, but

Malcolm Collins: there’s, there’s another big fee factor here, which is worth talking about is mm-hmm. As the last show on earth, like as the Trump administration became sort of the last show on earth, we have also seen the global eye in the same way that historically you know, we’re in a lot of places you were on earth, you would have a show that this popular in America, but it was also popular in all the other countries. Then it would be mm-hmm. A cross-cultural touchpoint. You see a lot of people interested in American politics that were not before.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. As,

Malcolm Collins: as sort of a show. Right. You, you basically, you have around like consider our audience, like 50% is non-US living. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Well, and actually, so there’s, there’s a great, like [00:03:00] this is just randomly in one of Asman Gold’s Yeah. Episode where he talks about why he covers news events. ‘cause he’s been doing a lot of stuff on like a.

You know, like what on earth is going on in Russia, what’s going on in Spain, what’s going on in Indonesia? And he pulled up, I just showed you a clip of this in one of his episodes, he’s like, look like here are my stats. More than half of his viewers are from outside the us. And research does highlight that large scale international engagement with us.

Political content has increased, particularly around like the major social media platforms like X and on Instagram and Facebook. Because you can’t really. Talk about anything else, like there’s nothing else that you can get a platform around.

Malcolm Collins: What’s really interesting about this is sort of our role in this, because one of the things that I always comment on is it is so weird for people who don’t know.

We’re often seen as like the leaders of the United States prenatal movement and, and at least the figureheads that the media always talks to. And so, yeah, I’m regularly talking with reporters. Like starting with Politico yesterday, right. You know, and we’ve got, we got Telemundo coming over soon.

We’ve got a French station for a [00:04:00] 30 minute episode. We’ve got a German team for like a 25 minute piece. We’ve got a you know, we’ve had major pieces in, in Japan and well HBO’s here next week for the Oh, HBO’s here next week. Yeah. So we, we, we do the rounds in terms of international media and many people ask like, why isn’t there a.

Prenatal movement in one of the countries that needed it more than the United States, right? Like the United States is arguably one of the most resistant countries to fertility collapse. It it, when, when its wealth is taken into account. And so, you know, why didn’t the prenatals movement start in Japan?

Why didn’t it start in Korea? Why didn’t it start in Italy? Why didn’t it start in Germany? Right? And why did it start in China, right? Like all the other countries that are freaking out about this, like why is grassroots tism a uniquely American thing? Why is it when Germany. Or Italy where their fertility numbers are much worse than ours.

When they are covering falling fertility rates, they come and talk to me.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Why is it Telemundo is talking to us and not a Latin American [00:05:00] ISTs organization when, you know, Mexico Fellow of the United States, GFR last year or and, and you know, now it might be all of Latin America might be collectively below the us.

TFR when we get this with like, it’s

Simone Collins: not just in Latin America. There was recently a German journalist who reached out to us and was like, I wanna cover demographic collapse in Germany. Can you introduce me to the German prenatal list? Leaders we’re like, there aren’t any that we know of. And, and then he’s like, well, okay, just any, any prenatal list in Germany.

And we’re like, well, we know of one. She’s leaving the country and she’s, she’s an expat anyway, she’s not German. And he’s like, oh, I’ll talk to her. Like, no, there’s just, yeah, it’s really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. But, but the, the point being is we sort of joined as members of the last show on Earth, right? Mm-hmm.

Like, we are, we are side characters. We are background characters. But we’re, we’re there. And so we’re playing into

Simone Collins: the, the, the narrative of that large sprawling cannon that is forming. Absolutely,

Malcolm Collins: it’s, it’s fascinating because it is a complete transition of what it means to [00:06:00] be a movie star in this generation.

Mm-hmm. And what it means to be a politician.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. And that’s the thing is because. This has replaced TV and movie, movies and sports and games as the one thing, the one discourse we can all share. It has also sort of gone the way of professional wrestling, where now these used to be, so like politics, health, and technology.

Okay? These used to be very wonky, nerdy topics, you know, newspapers and outlets and, and, and commentators. And armchair commentators as well who covered them, were very nuanced, were very nerdy, were very niche. They, they did not have a lot of charisma or personality. There wasn’t a lot of show to it. Right.

But now that it is the source of main entertainment and public discourse, you cannot really make it in this space without being an over the top outlandish character. And that’s why I mentioned Marco Rubio. And you point to him as an example, is that he’s one of those original, like. [00:07:00] Meritocratic, like traditional politicians who, there’s more nuance there.

He’s trying, like he’s playing the game like politicians used to play the game. Where, but now the game is the way Trump plays the game. It’s, it’s, it’s wwe e Trump, not, yeah, no, but political wonk, Marco Rubio.

Malcolm Collins: I actually argue and we see this not just on our side, but look at like all of the, like tweeting and trolling that they’re doing, like Gavin Newsom is trying to do.

Yeah. Watch everybody about the American psycho politician figure it out. Trolling where we, where, where we go over what happened there. But I, I think that you, you might be sort of picturing it wrong, where you’ve actually had a flip. So if you go back to the old days, let’s say like the 1950s, okay?

Mm-hmm. Everything was sort of centralized, so everybody tried to be respectable. You know, your, your politicians tried to be like broadly in offensive and respectable. Mm-hmm. And your media broadcasters tried to be broadly in offensive and respectable. And then you move into the, the era of the nineties and early two thousands.

Right. This is your, you know, Clinton and Obama, Bush era, right? [00:08:00] So in this area, politicians stayed broadly respectable, right? Mm-hmm. Like boring and not really the main show, right? But the media had transitioned. You look at the, the shows and the pundits that people were watching most and especially the younger people.

‘cause you know, you’re going through a transition and many of them were comedians. Many of them tried to, you know, spice things up. Many of them tried to be, be sort of like out there, right. And, and, and capture public attention. And you saw this with a lot of celebrities like doing stunts to capture public attention and stuff like that.

Right. Today that is flipped again where the the, the politicians have to take on the WWE style of what the media used to be doing, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The media that people are watching ironically in terms of like information media, like where people get their news, I would say is ironically more.

Nuanced and more sort of levelheaded and intellectual than media was in the eighties and nineties. Yeah, actually

Simone Collins: what’s really interesting [00:09:00] is, at least in the United States, media was sort of always known to be polarized. Like if you were a Republican, you would tune into Fox News. If you were a Democrat, you would tune into, I don’t know, like A, B, C or CNN or whatever, right?

And you would. You would sort of know and play your party. I was just looking at some, some pew research on the, the way that people are consuming news media now. And 37% of people under 35, I think a smaller proportion, but quite big of the rest of Americans get most of their news from influencers.

Now, most news influencers on social media, primarily on X, Facebook and Instagram. R. It’s almost like half and half. It’s like 45% have no political affiliation at all of those that do have political affiliation. It leans slightly to the right. So there are more, when they do express their affiliation, they’re more likely to express a conservative [00:10:00] affiliation than a a liberal affiliation.

I can send the graphs to you after this.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, but what I wanna know is. Who, what media influencer that’s a big name. Doesn’t have a PO political team. I

Simone Collins: think that ASM Gold is probably seen as one of those It doesn’t have. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Well then did is is inaccurate, ASM Gold is obviously on the right. Right.

Simone Collins: Yes. I, I, I hear you. But I mean that’s, I don’t think that’s how pew’s doing it. They didn’t name names from what I skim. Oh. So then

Malcolm Collins: they just did it wrong. Almost everyone who is in this space is, is partisan and. But I don’t hear They’re nuanced, partisan. If they do well, what, what as gold

Simone Collins: loves Bernie Sanders, doesn’t he?

Malcolm Collins: He did ages ago. Like he, well, but I’m just

Simone Collins: saying like, he’s nuanced. He’s not like, not,

Malcolm Collins: not at all. Simone. Most, but freaking, most of the White House main staffers now liked Bernie Sanders back when Asma Gold did. That’s true. Like, I don’t know what you like. Okay, so if, if, if you look okay at our show, right, like fairly nuanced intellectual coverage mm-hmm.

With a stated partisan bias. But you can look at the, the big figures like Asma Golder or [00:11:00] something like that, right? Like he is spicy, but he is going deep and intellectual. Kersha the, the, the canceled Fox U girl, right? Like clearly intellectual in the way that she covers things. You can look at sargon of a cod like.

Clearly intellectual in the way he cover covers things. Carl, Carl Benjamin you can look at on, on the, on the left right Destiny. Destiny might be a partisan, but he is way more in depth and intellectual than any of the mainstream hosts that were on television. Oh, yeah. No,

Simone Collins: I mean, if you look at any mainstream news channel, at least.

In, in terms of US outlets. It is, there’s, there’s no nuance. I mean, another really important trend that I think is important to highlight here too is that news used to be a highly local thing. And, and now it is not you really, all you have left. Even when it comes to like journalism that is supposed to inform people of local events.

No, it is all world news. It’s not just that, like people from Romania are tuning into Asman Gold’s channel and listening [00:12:00] to. To our podcast. It is that the number of local journalists in the United States has dropped about 75% since 2002. And already then they were like almost none, over 3,300 newspapers.

So more than one third have closed since 2005. Wow. So basically more than half US counties have little or no. Local news coverage. All you have really is like the Nextdoor app, which is this sort of neighborhood based app where you have to like, you have to upload an electricity bill to prove that you’re a resident and then people just kind of use that to chat about local things.

But yeah, so really again, like even when it comes to. The things that journalism still used to do, like they weren’t known for deep, nuanced, wonky takes about world news. They were more about like, here’s what you need to know locally. Here’s the stuff happening on the world stage that is relevant to you as a citizen so you can vote responsibly.

That was kind of this. Noble concept of journalism and that all fell apart. And now it is WWE journalism, and now it’s WWE [00:13:00] politicians. But would you like to, I I, I found some really interesting information on just how Balkanized culture is now. I can do, well, I, I wanna do

Malcolm Collins: a fun tangent here. One of, one of the, the fun things that we learned a while ago, and I should go back and see if this is still true, if you’re looking on some site of like.

Romanian podcast rankings and we were like the seventh highest ranked podcast in Romania. Yeah, I think that’s changed since, but I was shocked to see. Yeah. I’m sure it’s changed since then, but I was shocked to see that as well. I was like, what the is wrong with you? You Romanian b******s. What? What are you watching me for?

Simone Collins: Yeah. But again, there’s, there’s sort of one, if you want to engage in online discourse in a meaningful way and not just be in your very, very tiny bubble. And you need to be talking about these things. And we, we talk about, we do touch on the main things, you know, world relevant politics, which often is US, politics, tech, and health.

Like, we talk about all those things a lot. So it makes sense. But to give you a picture of, and I’m gonna use America as, as the [00:14:00] primary example here, because there’s really good data there. It has become so. Fractured over time. So for an example, we used to, like you said, at the very beginning of this watch, at least a lot of us watched the same TV shows.

So household dealership for TV shows, it peaked in the 1950s, in sixties with shows like, I Love Lucy. Like, I think there used to be some stat of like, at any given time in the world, like, you know, I love Lucy playing on this many TVs and it was just. Humbling and terrifying at the same time. Also though, like another top show was called Texaco Star Theater, which I’ve never heard of before.

So whatever. But 50 to 60% of American households watched those shows, so. You had more than a a, a coins flip odds chance of being able to make an inside joke about one of those shows. And the random, there was that

Malcolm Collins: many people watch the same shows. Yeah, yeah. 50%. But it’s the same as Trump today. If I make a comment about the Trump White House or some reason, oh, 100% [00:15:00] everyone’s gonna know.

50 over 50% of people will know. Mm-hmm. Way more than like when I was growing up, there was like, I didn’t know anything except for like. You know the, about the Clinton except for like the, the scandal, right? Like I didn’t know that much about the bushes. I didn’t know except. For like word flubbing and stuff like this, you are getting constant daily.

Like this is what’s happening at the White House right now was a trouble. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Even if you don’t wanna know, you know? And that’s the crazy thing yeah, people

Malcolm Collins: take pride in not knowing because they, they see it as like such a difficult thing to somehow not know what’s going on at the White House.

It’s true. But

Simone Collins: yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s not just TV though. It, it’s also books. I mean, as you did a whole episode on like no one reads anymore, but in the early 1980s. Blockbuster bestsellers, like the bonfire of the vanities and the Da Vinci Code, they could reach up to 10% or more of us adults, which is pretty impressive given that US adults don’t have to read and it’s not like that common of a pastime, I guess.

So 10 percent’s pretty impressive. Now, today’s bestsellers, even the most popular fiction reach [00:16:00] just one to 2% of Americans. And, and fewer Americans are even reading a book. So only 48.5% of US adults read any book, any book for pleasure as of 2022. And that’s down from 52% in 2017. Wow. And yet despite this, right in, in like around these days, so like for the past five years or so, about 4 million new book titles are published each year.

And in 2003, about 300,000 new titles were published. So 3000. New titles to now 4 million. So there’s like a billion more books. And like for any weird niche thing you’re into, you can read your book. And, and yet. It’s very hard. Nobody’s

Malcolm Collins: reading anymore. No. Yeah.

Simone Collins: And I thought, well, it’s like video games, right?

People must be playing the same video games. And then I guess this is me, like a non-video game person. In the eighties and nineties, the blockbuster video games like Super Mario Bros and Tetris were played by 30 to 50% of all gamers. So it’s, it’s very similar to like TV shows in the fifties and [00:17:00] sixties, right?

They all had this like shared experience. And you even see this like chip tune music was inspired by it. We all bond over it as like millennials, like all these references. You know, like white, like we know what that means as millennials at least. Right. I think even a lot of like younger people know what that means.

But today even the mega bestsellers like Minecraft, with which Arsan is obsessed

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Or Grant theft auto have only reached about five to 10% of all gamers over their lifespans. Wow. So at any given moment, the current bestseller only engages one to 2% of active gamers. Of active gamers. Not even like, including nobody’s like me who have never played a game in their life, aside from roller coaster, tycoon and like ribbon.

Right? So that’s wild. And so I was like, okay, well then maybe. Maybe it’s, it’s sports. Sports. People still watch sports. But no, actually, so average regular season NFL viewership is down from its peaks in the eighties and two [00:18:00] thousands. NBA finals in 2005 averaged only 10.2 million viewers. That’s down 46% from the 2005 peak.

So that is just. Like people aren’t watching the same sports anymore. What, what’s actually happening though is while major sports in the USA, like the N-F-L-N-B-A-M-L-B, they’re shrinking global sports like women’s leagues, international sports, international soccer are seeing growth. So people are just going into the little niches.

And then I think like anecdotally. Maybe people can’t relate to this as much ‘cause they’re probably only going to parties with people who are like super within their bubbles and niches.

Yeah. But you

and I, when we host parties, we’re bringing together politicians and journalists and business leaders and investors and influencers, and writers and authors.

And I think like 20% of the conversations are like either pretending that we understand a reference someone is making. Or asking them to explain a [00:19:00] reference that they’re, yes. It’s so frustrating. It’s just like, oh, well, like so and so said, or this, this thing, and like, oh, you know, Trump

Malcolm Collins: or Elon reference, everybody knows if you make a reference about the weird ISTs, most people know.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Like, which is weird, right? Like, yeah. It’s

Simone Collins: insane. It’s insane. And I just, I, I still can’t get over like, yeah, I

Malcolm Collins: wanna focus on, or say what you’re gonna say and then I’ll get to.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, so the, the, like even in, in, in 19 64, 36 0.3% of, of Americans watched the TV show Bonanza. And then, then in the nineties when you and I were kids, at least 20% of Americans watched Seinfeld.

I didn’t. But now do you even know what 2020 four’s Top American TV show was? Good games? No, no. It was a show called Tracker. 17.4 American 17 point, 17.4% of American households watched it. What? I, I, [00:20:00] yeah. It was like, wait, what’s it about? It’s, it’s about a professional reward seeker who finds missing persons for prize money, all while struggling with complex issues from his fractured family and past traumas.

Never heard of it. I have never heard, never freaking heard of that.

But I wanna point out here, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, oh, it can’t really be that bad, that nobody has cultural touchstones anymore, outside of what’s in the public media narrative, if you like us, hadn’t even heard of the top show right now, you’re sort of proving that to yourself.

Simone Collins: But I think, you know, another element of this that I think is under-discussed, which I’d love to hear your thoughts on, is, is we’re we’re seeing much more of a mixing of social classes and cultural groups. So like when you were growing up and we even like your mom harangued us about this before she passed.

About like how we had to raise our kids. She was like, you have to go to tennis and you have to go to sailing ‘cause you need to have this like shared lingo with your social [00:21:00] class so that you can fit in. And now there’s just so much more mixing like immigration since 1965 and changes in laws and social attitudes have meant that like social classes and ethnic groups and cultures are now way more mixed.

So like nearly 39% of Americans married since 2010 are in religiously mixed marriage. So that’s, that’s double the 19% rate before 1960. Yeah. And in 1980, for example, about 86% of undergraduates were white. So like going to university kind of was like a rich, white person thing where you would all get your like, cohesive culture together.

But that figure dropped to 40% with non-white students making up 40% from 80%. Yeah. So like 86% in 1980. Wow. And then in 1960, nearly 90% of American workers were white. And then by 2019, the sh the share of non-white Latino were both workers doubled to about 40%. So like just, there used to be like a lot of just cultural isolation and like [00:22:00] shared understanding of things.

And now. We’re just, we’re mixed. And so that’s one thing. And then of course we’ve also, like church attendance is down, right? I mean it, it’s dropped from about 50% in the forties to sixties in the USA to 30% today.

Malcolm Collins: Well dropped say yeah, you can’t reference, I remember growing up my parents, I was raised in a secular family, but I was told I needed to memorize the Bible.

Yeah. Because they shared cultural touchpoint. Yeah. That other educated people would reference when also

Simone Collins: play tennis and go sailing. And what were the other things you were supposed to do?

Malcolm Collins: We. Tennis, sailing, you, you’d think golf. No. They said golf is only trashy or autistic kids learn golf. They were like, only like really nerdy, messed up kids learn golf.

Even rich kids, they’re, because it’s not a kid thing. They’re like, you learn that when you’re an adult. Don’t do that when you’re That’s

Simone Collins: true. Okay. Yeah. Learn it when you’re old. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I, it’s, it’s true though, like all the kids I know who play golf as like young people are like real squares. Like in a, in a, in a, in a way that, that see our pod person episode in that, in that sort of a way.

But, gosh, I actually just thinking about me [00:23:00] being like a sailing and tennis kid varsity tennis, by the way. Yeah, you were

Simone Collins: actually good at it. I just learned that last week. That blew my

Malcolm Collins: mind. You were like, wait, you were good at it. I didn’t like it. But I was good at it.

I love in the Discord. , Somebody was saying at one point that Malcolm has this identity crisis where he keeps trying to pretend to be other things like Americana or redneck or something like that, when in actuality he’s just like the most English nobility, , like Eduardo in Victorian period person they’ve ever seen in terms of values.

And I can sort of see it like that. I am. Intellectually that English anthropologists, Victorian, like, whatever you call it, like genteel scientists, trying desperately to fit in with the natives and pretend that he is something other than what he is.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway, the point being is, I agree with you. I think we are seeing a degradation of classes with sort of new network classes emerging. Well, class

Simone Collins: separation. I [00:24:00] don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing either. I mean, like social media has leveled the playing field to a great extent. And like Right. But I disagree

Malcolm Collins: with part of your thesis here.

Okay. Oh yeah. I think what we’re seeing is a new sort of class system emerged. It’s much more of a network state. Mm. Techno fatalism. No. 100% techno fatalism. Like if you look at our class, our community is the rationalist slash effective altruist community. Even if we’re in the right wing faction of it, like we would have a many of the same cultural touchstones as anyone else in that community They’re watching.

Yeah. So we can make those,

Simone Collins: yeah. We can talk about Rocco’s Basilisk. We can talk about all these things. And we, we, we know Rocco,

Malcolm Collins: by the way, the, the guy who, who created it. I’m gonna have him on the show sometime, I guess.

Simone Collins: You should. He has some really fun because it, he’s come up with so many things aside from the

bas Yeah.

Like,

well, his talk on hereon was about building communities in like icebergs or something. Right. That was really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: You thought you could build cities, floating cities out of icebergs would be cheaper than making it on a ship.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Even, even make the iceberg like you didn’t [00:25:00] even have to.

Yeah. It was super cool.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That, that was the cheapest way to get a, a big floating mass on the ocean. Yeah. And the mass checks out. It’s cool.

Simone Collins: I like it.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway. Anyway so talking about Roco. Oh yes. But, you know, you have this shared cultural idea. Yeah. And there’s many other shared communities out there where they sort of all, like, we’re also adjacent to like the Manosphere community.

Mm-hmm. Like I know anything that’s going on in the Manosphere community, largely anything they would know. Yeah, we can make a

Simone Collins: lot of references to them. Yeah. Like

Malcolm Collins: the based gaming community we’re adjacent to. Yeah. Yeah. But there’s other communities out there that, like, if you’re talking about like the, the progressive gamer community, like that’s a whole other thing that like doesn’t engage.

Oh, can

Simone Collins: I, can I give you a picture of this? ‘cause I, I just think this is so fun. Okay, sure. Like I, let’s, let’s, let’s just some, some niche literacy tests on you. No, no, no. Before

Malcolm Collins: we do niche literacy tests. I wanted to go into another point which I think is really important is what you need to win within this existing ecosystem is very [00:26:00] different than what you needed before.

And this is what we sort of started with, but I wanna highlight it.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: I was talking with a reporter at Politico. About the various potential candidates for president in the next cycle, you know? Mm-hmm. If, if it wasn’t gonna be JD Vance, you know, who are the real contenders on the right? Right. And she suggested RFK and I was like, RFK is an awesome candidate.

Yeah. I loved his hilarious bear story. If you, you really guys. If haven’t seen Atory, he saw a roadkill bear and decided he was gonna eat it, which first of all, I’m like, great. You just, no,

Simone Collins: you have to watch the recording of him. It’s stupid. Yeah, just watch it,

Malcolm Collins: puts it in a bike lane in New York and, and the news started covering it, saying that somebody had crashed into a bear and it’s f*****g hilarious.

Anyway, I love it. I was like, what a base guy. And he is clearly not afraid to challenge the system and like, I don’t think he’s right about everything. I think he might, his skepticism might be a little too tuned up. But I think that he is willing to challenge things that a lot of people haven’t been willing to challenge for a long time.

Mm-hmm. And that makes me like him as a person. He’s, he’s got the, he’s got [00:27:00] the charisma for, for television, right. J Vance definitely does you know, he is got that great. Origin story. He’s willing to, you know, go to Europe and then meet with the a FD, you know, like the band political party instead of the mainstream party.

Then give some big speech about how they’re all a bunch of fascists and we shouldn’t even be allies with Europe anymore. And everybody loves, you know, it’s like he’s doing something fun, you know? Mm-hmm. And then you get they’re like, who else? I was like, Joe Rogan would be a. Presidential candidate on the Yeah, but get to your

Simone Collins: point, right?

So obviously characters are viable. Who’s

Malcolm Collins: not? Right? But I’m, I’m showing you what is viable. What isn’t viable is Rubio. And she’s like, what about Rubio? And I’m like, Rubio would make a great democratic politician because they haven’t figured out how to be interesting yet. No, but then no,

Simone Collins: he wouldn’t because yeah, they, what they need is interesting politicians.

This is why Gavin Newsom, if he just leans into his villain era, he’s good. He’s golden.

Speaker: There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me only an entity, something illusory.

And though I can hide my cold gaze and [00:28:00] you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense, our lifestyles are probably comparable. I simply am not there.

Simone Collins: A OC, she’s, hmm. She’s, she’s close, she’s adjacent. You know, she’s, she’s character able. Right. You know, it just like you need strong characters. You can’t be, well, Federman

Malcolm Collins: would be really good. Betterman would be great.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Oh, no, no, totally. Well, I was watching

Malcolm Collins: a really interesting take recently when they were talking about the Democrats are recently their highest level of unfavorability, I think like almost ever, at least in a very long time. Hmm. And the party is just sort of unwilling to see how bad they are.

And a lot of people think, oh, this means we need to go extreme or we need to go moderate. And what the guy was pointing out is, is actually their unfavorability numbers now are about what the Republicans were when Trump came into power in the first place. And Dibbs have gone through this before, and he was talking about when Clinton came into power.

The, the, the. You know, bill Clinton and he pointed out that when you have these [00:29:00] changes in who’s running and who’s winning it is because the new person doesn’t come out there and, and just take a more moderate or a more extreme position. Mm-hmm. Typically what they do is, and Bill Clinton did this, and Trump did this.

Is they’ll take a number of positions that are more extreme and they’ll take a number of positions that are moderate or literally on the opposite side. So you look at somebody like Trump, and Trump comes out there and you know, everyone back then on the right was like, well, we can’t be as far on immigration as we have been historically.

Trump goes way to the right of them on immigration and then goes way to the left of them on gay rights and then goes way to the left of them on. Social security and, and Medicaid. And then, you know, goes, takes this new sort of nationalist rightist stance. It’s not like a warhawk rightist stance. And Bill Clinton was doing the same thing when he came into power, right?

Like he was, he was way to the right or even right leaning on a lot of issues. And then way to the left on other issues. And freaked out. Dims dims were terrified by Clinton in, in the early days. And then the [00:30:00] party sort of re coalesce around him as is happening with Trump right now. But they need somebody who’s gonna come out there and do those things while having a personality.

Mm-hmm. Which is why Fetterman would be so strong for it if the Democratic machine wouldn’t do everything in their power to prevent him from coming in. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You could run. Yeah. So I

Simone Collins: really, yeah, just so for, for like literacy. ‘cause I think people again, don’t realize how in a bubble they are.

Like people get the impression on X that like everyone is talking about the stuff we’re talking about on X, yet only one in five Americans approximately are active on the platform. And then depending on your algorithm, you’re in some little bubble there anyway. And. Like elsewhere on social media, there are people who think that, like, people such as Becca Bloom are household names.

Do you know who Becca Bloom is?

Malcolm Collins: Never heard of Becca Bloom. Of

Simone Collins: course you don’t. And, and that’s the thing is like they, they don’t realize this. And also beyond that, as of 2025, so as of this year, 73% of Americans don’t use social media at all. So they’re just all about their local communities or their family.

And that’s why you, you, you, you have to [00:31:00] understand this, but I can show like top top accounts on Patreon as an example. Of just all these communities that, like these are people who are paying on a monthly basis to get access to a community. It’s really important to them, and you’ve probably never heard of it.

Like random things you don’t expect to find on Patreon that are really doing well. Software and software mods, horse training, van life inspiration, and also sailing inspiration for whatever reason. Like of the top 50 Patreon creators, there’s number two. Yeah. Peter boy who tell me if, tell me if this, what you understand what this is saying.

Okay. This is, this is what his about. Says, I tried to bring a lifelike look to a set. Of course, Corsa, ac. Ija Jasper have brought us many tools to mod AC with his custom shaders patch of CSP. Many features are added to AC one of CSPs modules called Weather fx Made new graphics possible with. So I created a highly customized weather system for a [00:32:00] set of Corsa, the next step of my weather and graphic system called Pure.

It addresses many problems of soul and brings new solutions. So what do you think that is?

Malcolm Collins: It’s wait a weather. It’s either weather for video game mods. Is that what it is? Is it weather for video game mods?

Simone Collins: So a seto corset is a highly acclaimed racing simulation video game. I thought it was some kind of like weather prediction system.

I was like, oh yeah, I thought weather prediction first, but then you asked me,

Malcolm Collins: so I was like, okay,

Simone Collins: it’s gotta be something else. It’s gotta be, yes. Do you wanna guess how much he makes per month on Patreon?

Malcolm Collins: $5,000.

Simone Collins: He makes $55,000 a month, Malcolm. Okay. That’s

Malcolm Collins: the second highest earner on Patreon.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. 55.

Yep, that’s right. Uhhuh. That’s right. Uhhuh. Yep. Mm-hmm. So just

Malcolm Collins: $55,000 a month. Know dang well the Tru

Simone Collins: on podcast, which isn’t number eight, makes 174,000 a month. I don’t know, they charge more. There are several d and d creators, so d and d is alive and well. Yeah. There’s 38 is, is Turbo driver, which just creates mods for the Sims four and has nearly [00:33:00] 18,000 paid subscribers.

There’s number 41 Forex who creates pixel drain, which is some kind of file sharing software, and he makes $58,960 a month. These are people, again, like people are building their lives around this. They’re paying monthly subscriptions that are non-trivial and cost to these people for the software mods and to access to the community.

This is just the, the crazy thing also, I don’t think people realize we now have, you know, it used to be that like throughout London, in a London neighborhood, you’d walk a couple blocks. And you’d hear a new accent. Like the idea of being hackney meant that you were born within earshot of a specific church bell, and you would have your, they had their own accent, like it was a thing.

Now there are major social media accents. There’s the, the female influencer accent. It’s also called TikTok voice or influencer accent. Oh, yeah, yeah. I heard this Male, male gamer. S trad wife accent. There’s male news commentator or podcaster accent and there’s Gen Z, non-binary like androgynous accent.

That’s, I’ve heard.

Malcolm Collins: The accent that always gets me is the [00:34:00] EA community accent, which is like our wider like EA nationals accent.

Simone Collins: Yes. That’s such a thing. And,

Malcolm Collins: and the, the thing that defines it. ‘cause you see this when everything document it, it, it blinds me like when I figure it, because I find it so annoying.

Which is they couch everything they’re saying. They are like so afraid to make a claim where they’ll say something like, like, I feel, or like, I feel like X or like. You know, this has been observed or what, whatever. Right. You know, like they, they don’t, they don’t

Simone Collins: well, it’s more word choice. It’s, it’s more their, their like diction and syntax and like, a lilt and accent.

But it is totally a distinct thing. Yeah. You can listen to someone and know, depending on how informed you are, what community they’re a part of. Like, oh, she’s trying to be TikTok influencer. Oh, he’s a gamer. Like, oh no, he’s more of a news guy. What are we? Come on, people gotta tell us what, what actually yeah, I don’t know what we sound like.

What do we sound like people? Also slang, I’m gonna test your slang and listeners [00:35:00] follow along and see if you can see how down

Malcolm Collins: I’m with the, with the crew.

Simone Collins: Okay. Do you know what a light stick is and how it’s used? I.

Malcolm Collins: Light stick. I assume a light stick is used for like filming, like selfies or something.

Simone Collins: No, you loser. It’s a part of the K-pop community. It is a fan light that is unique to each group. So you can buy your light stick for like your chosen K-pop group that has like their logo and colors, whatever you wave it at concerts.

So I’ve seen this on my shows. I’m in Japa Japanese shows. But you don’t know the word, so, okay, try this one. Do you know what it means to be tatty blasted. Tatty blasted. You heard some good words here. Yeah. What does it mean to be tatty blasted? It means that you are covered in tattoos because there is a very thriving and very vibrant tattoo community.

Speaking of

Malcolm Collins: the K-pop communities, I had an anecdote about that. So at when I was getting my Stanford NBA, the guy who was running Netflix at the time came over and gave a speech. [00:36:00] One of the things he mentioned in his speech was like his secretary or something was like, I don’t understand why you don’t buy more like KDRs, because they’re all of the first page results on Netflix.

And he goes, that’s just your account. ‘cause you watch them all the time. That’s really funny. But the, the shows, you know, how you can forget, be like, oh, I see this stuff all the time, therefore No, that’s,

Simone Collins: that’s why I want, like, I just wanna like hammer this home that like, these are very, very large communities that I’m talking about here.

Like K-pop, the, the K-pop world is huge and we also need to watch K-pop demon hunters. And it is, we, we, we, we like, don’t realize, but like as big as those worlds are and as much as you can live your entire life within them. You need to understand that if you want mainstream influence and, and relatability, you cannot use that lingo.

You cannot use that accent. You have to play into the one, the last show left, but I, I, I have a couple more words for you and then we’re [00:37:00] gonna stop. But do you know what it means to be mugged by someone? Mobbed Mogged. MOGG. Moog, no, I don’t know Mo you could, I feel supposed these words. I’m not a hip, I’m not with it because I thought you knew all about your subculture.

This is from the looks maxing subculture to be, to be mogged as, to be outclassed in looks. So if someone is much better looking, they mog, others like you might be hype mugged or you, you might face mog someone. So that, that is a thing. Do you know what an H-F-H-O-A is?

Malcolm Collins: An H-F-H-O-A uhhuh? No, I’m looking up pictures of people who mugged people.

And they, they look ridiculous.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. The looks smacking. The looks, maxing look is a very specific aesthetic that isn’t necessarily like everyone’s universal standard of beauty, but like, anyway, an H-F-H-O-A is a, a homeowner’s association that is homestead friendly. [00:38:00] Homestead. There’s a big homesteading community.

You know, they’re all about their gardening and their chickens and their, their farm animals. And not all homeowners associations are super cool. Oh my God. Do you

Malcolm Collins: remember, I thought that was so funny. The HBO, like documentarian, who was afraid of us having guns in our house. Oh yeah. I just asked like, genuinely scared.

Simone Collins: Are they loaded? Yeah, no, she was genuinely like, she thought she was gonna come here and die. Who knows? She might still we make no promises. We gotta give

Malcolm Collins: one of the kids a, a gun.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Anyway do you know what pan porn is or what it means to D Stash?

Malcolm Collins: No, I dunno. Either of these. What, what

Simone Collins: to d stash is to declutter or get rid of the makeup you don’t use.

And pan porn is, is when you hit the pan. Like you’ve used all of the eyeshadow or like blush or foundation Powder Foundation. Okay. And what about Slack packing? Why would I

Malcolm Collins: know those? When

Simone Collins: would that ever happen? Know? Okay, you wouldn’t know that. But what about Slack packing? Or do you know what a neuro is?

Slack packing. Slack packing. No idea. [00:39:00] It’s, it’s part of the backpacking community. Also huge in thriving, hiking a trail section without carrying a full backpack or because someone else like sh shuttles your gear. Like you have someone deliver it to the camp ahead of, and a Niro is a nearly near zero mile day.

So you’re just going a few miles before you stop. Okay, finally, finally though, maybe you’ll get this one. I think maybe you’ll get this one. What community has murder Hobos?

Malcolm Collins: Murder Hobos.

Simone Collins: Murder, hobos.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know. Hobo communities?

Simone Collins: No. Dungeons and Dragons.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yes, I do know that term. You know hobos.

Simone Collins: You do

Malcolm Collins: know that.

Okay. I, I can tell you what this one means. ‘cause I do know the Dungeons and Dragon community. It is when a group of players acts like murder hobos, they just, now that they can do whatever they want, they just go out and murder everyone they see and they be called murder, murder hobos for doing that.

Simone Collins: God bless. All right, well, I gotta go get the kids for a, b, a therapy for Tourin as we attempt to get him to eat food, which he refuses to [00:40:00] do. But yeah, the takeaway there is one, there is one show left, and if you don’t opt into it, you will not have widespread influence. You need to understand that you live in a bubble more so than ever before that we do not have a shared community or discourse because everything’s mixed together, which ironically means everything’s balkanized and not unified anymore.

And I think that’s really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. I love you. I love you so much. Bye Malcolm. Have a great day. Murder hobo you, you’re a murder hobo. I murder hobo every AI simulation. I, I love murder hobo. Everyone’s like, oh, I, I find I, I get too attached to my AI friends. And I’m like, but I murder all my AI friends.

Why do you do that? And it’s like, well, I can’t murder my real friends. Right? So,

Simone Collins: no, no. Too messy. Too messy. Although someone pointed out in the comments the other day that like. There are these swamps in Florida that you just like. I guess like you throw bodies into them and like no one finds them. [00:41:00]

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah.

Yeah. There’s some great places in Florida if for doing that. But we’re not in

Simone Collins: Florida, so people give us re We’re in Pennsylvania. All right. Relevant advice. Where do we

Malcolm Collins: throw the bodies?

Simone Collins: No, just tragic. Boating. Accident. Always Tragic. Boating. Accident. Come on guys. Say it with me. Tragic

Malcolm Collins: voting.

Accident. Tragic voting.

Simone Collins: Accident. Got drunk. Ooh, we were all having too much fun. Fell overboard. Tragic voting. Accident. All right. Yeah. I love you. Love you too. Welcome. Bye.

Malcolm Collins: Are we gonna switch sides? ‘cause you’re gonna leave this one.

Simone Collins: No, no, no, no.

Malcolm Collins: Too, too dangerous for the world. Order

Simone Collins: has to remain intact. Don’t do that. And that would be terrible. But let’s just sorry, I

Malcolm Collins: don’t mean to abuse you like that.

Simone Collins: Let’s just get into it. You ready?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I’m ready to go.

Simone Collins: Alright.

Speaker 2: Okay. Torsten, do you understand why we’re not going to a toy store? Right? Why? Well, because you haven’t been a very good boy. You hid your pears. Titan. What? Titan. I’m [00:42:00] thinking we’re gonna have to throw Torsten into the lava. Should we do that? No. You don’t want to throw him into the lava? No. Why? ‘cause has to stay.

Oh, you like, you like Torsten? Yeah. And you wanna have, you’d like Tex, you want Tex to come back healthy? Yeah. I don’t get the car thing, I don’t get the like thing that has the like rug and tiny car. Like Car R, like car rug thing and the tiny car squeeze. Yeah, I can. Go get it. I said, go get it, avian. Is that a very polite way to ask?

Speaker 3: Can you please get it?

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe