Do We Have a Real Relationship?

Malcolm and Simone have an insightful debate about why some celebrities seem to genuinely enjoy interacting with fans, while others recoil. Malcolm argues niche internet stars are more likely to be themselves publicly, feeling kinship with fans who understand their odd ideas. But Simone counters that reaching mainstream fame requires compromising your true self. They discuss how public personalities reacting negatively to fans likely feel cognitive dissonance about the persona being liked. They theorize on specific celebrities, concluding Bill Murray, Donald Trump and Andrew Tate are fully themselves, while progressive influencers often put on a facade. The lesson - pay attention to how famouses engage with fans for clues to their authenticity.

Malcolm: [00:00:00] he was like, Oh, I have a parasocial relationship with you guys. You've never met me, but I watch all your episodes and I feel like. I sort of know you through that. And it was very interesting the way I felt about that in the moment because I was like, yeah, well, I mean, you're our friend, right?

Like, I immediately felt like it was much more of a two way relationship than historically I have seen. People talk about parasocial. Well,

Simone: more than you would expect. Right?

Malcolm: And so then I begin to reflect on the people I know when they talk about their fans, do they have. A relationship where, , they genuinely feel an emotional connection to them, even when they haven't personally talked to somebody, they just meet someone, and this one's like, oh, I'm a big fan of your work, and they're immediately like, oh, yeah, we're going to get along, or do they sort of recoil at that? So then what is your thesis on what was causing this divide?

Would you like to know more?

Simone: So Malcolm, I am so afraid right now. For what reason? The, [00:01:00] imagine there's like a monster or like a murderer outside, outside your room, just outside and that feeling, that feeling, or like, like your worst enemy or like your boss or something is like right outside your, your door just waiting for you.

Malcolm: So this is because there is a mess outside her door.

Simone: There's a mess. I can, I can

Malcolm: hear it. We got all of this stuff from my mom after she died and we've been putting it away. And Simone just always reacts this way to messes. Where is this existential sort of constant hatred and dread? By the way, Simone, speaking of messes and I get added the longer we're in a relationship, I get new little tasks I have to do.

So I took a shower before this podcast and now I have to squeegee the walls of the shower after I do it. Oh, heart stains don't. I don't know if this is a task that anyone else has to do for their wife. I have not heard [00:02:00] of this as a part of regular life maintenance.

Simone: If you have hard water, it is hard water.

Malcolm: We have a whole system to help with the hard

Simone: water and it's not enough. It's not enough. It gets the glass all smudgy and gross and cloudy. And I don't want that. But yeah, anyway, we're not going to

Malcolm: talk about shower count. What, what, what inspired this podcast with a particular. So we're going to be at this Natalist conference.

We're, we're not the ones running it. A lot of people think we're, we're the ones running it. No, another group is running it. Actually they've got some, some canceled people among them. So it will be spicier, I think, than a lot of things that we might put together ourselves. And we were talking as one of the people who was running it, but who we hadn't met yet.

And he was like, Oh, I feel like, I already know, like, like I have a parasocial relationship with you guys. You've never met me, but I watch all your episodes and I feel like. I sort of know you through that. And it was very interesting the way I felt about that in the moment because I was like, yeah, well, I mean, you're our friend, right?

Like, I [00:03:00] immediately felt like it was much more of a two way relationship than historically I have seen. People talk about parasocial. Well,

Simone: more than you would expect. Right? Like when, yeah, when someone says, like, we feel like we have a parasocial relationship with you, we're like, oh, so, like, 1, you don't hate us for our views to, like, we're on the same page with some weird ideas.

Like, we've, we've, yeah,

Malcolm: but I want to get into here. Simone. Why? Because then I started thinking about, you know, Simone and I, I guess with guests we've had on and stuff like that, people can tell that we hang out at circles with lots of really high profile online celebrities in, and also IRL celebrities.

And so then I begin to reflect on the people I know when they talk about their fans, do they have. A relationship where, like, they really like the relationship they have with their, their, their fans, like, they, they genuinely feel an emotional connection to them, even when they haven't personally talked to somebody, they just [00:04:00] meet someone, and this one's like, oh, I'm a big fan of your work, and they're immediately like, oh, yeah, we're going to get along, or do they sort of recoil at that?

And when we started doing this, Simone you came up with, like, a really good heuristic for the group that would be like Yes, I get along really well. So, so we can, we can begin to lay this out. So I think people who get along, like who had seemed to think very fondly of their fans are people like Razeeb Khan.

And then when we think about our friends who are celebrities who have the most antagonism to our fans, their fans, who would like, obviously we couldn't say names because of that, but they're generally like pop celebrities, I guess I'd say like people who are really famous, but was a really, really wide

Simone: audience.

A wider, more mainstream audience, I would say. Yeah. So the people we know who are niche celebrities tend to be much more in sync with their fans. And if someone doesn't, if they've never spoken with someone, but someone knows their work and really gets it, like they typically get on pretty

Malcolm: well. Yeah. So then [00:05:00] what is it that you, your, your thesis on what was causing this divide?

Simone: Yeah. I think that, that niche celebrities are much more likely to be genuinely themselves. And that's why one there's, there it's still niche. Like, I think that when you get to a certain level of mainstream appeal you, you aren't exactly allowed to be yourself anymore. Like you have to. I'm going to push back on that, but let me, you know, make my point is, is that you're not allowed, you basically have to like, appeal to more mainstream tastes and views.

Kind of like politicians being forced to go toward the center to get more electorate when they're running for office. And so by doing that, you basically stop becoming yourself. And so when someone has a parasocial relationship with you in, in a more mainstream context. It isn't actually you, because you've had to compromise who you actually are to appeal to more people.

Now tell me why you don't think that's fair. No, I

Malcolm: think you're totally wrong about that. So I think your first point was correct. I think your second point was just so y nonsense.

So, and unfortunately I have to talk [00:06:00] around this for our audience, because Simone always gets mad if I, like, Like, Razib, I know he wouldn't care, like, we've done, he's posted pictures with us and stuff in the past, I know he wouldn't care but like, other people we know, I have to sort of talk around when I'm trying to come up with examples but we know people who have a mainstream audience appeal, Simone, that are very much themselves within that audience.

Simone: There are exceptions, there are exceptions. They're unusual. Like Donald Trump, I'm sure is one of those people. He's like, I don't know Donald Trump, but like he is definitely someone who seems like himself all the time.

Malcolm: Right. And he is someone who, when people go up and they're like, I am a fan of your work.

You can even see it in his eyes. He may not know that person, but they light up and he feels a genuine sense of kinship with the individual. Agree, agree. Because he is publicly who

Simone: he really is. But I would say that is a minority, a Well,

Malcolm: actually, now I'm going to point out a different thing that you might not be thinking about.

We also know people who are niche online celebrities who hate their fans. I [00:07:00] can think of two examples off the top of my head. I can't give names, Simone. I know you can't give names. You get angry at me. Yeah, I don't want to risk it in editing or something like that. I'm just going to say there are two examples that I know for a fact do not like their fans and feel like they, they seem to get a little afraid when they meet people in public who are their fans and both of them put on fake personalities.

Simone: Okay. So you just, you just, yeah. Well, okay. Well, but okay. I would also say then at least the odds. So if you were looking at a sample of a hundred mainstream famous people, and you were looking at a sample of a hundred. Here's where you're

Malcolm: making the mistake. Here's where you're making the mistake. You're thinking about historic celebrities.

Going forwards, if you look at celebrities that rose to fame in the last 10 years, Yeah, they're

Simone: much more niche. But I also think that we're seeing the death of the mainstream celebrity. I don't think we're just going to see that many mainstream, like, Broad, broad for everyone. Celebrities. The reason

Malcolm: why you used to have this trend is the same thing that you learned when you went to the political [00:08:00] consulting campaign.

And they're like, well, the first thing you need to do is to delete all of your social media history so no one can ever find out anything weird or unusual or particular, you know, that you've ever said. These people were catering to like the way that boy bands used to become famous and the way that, you know, any of these corporately engineered stars became famous, but today there's a lot of stars that rise to fame simply to through appealing.

Directly to an audience and there's been different ways that people have done that. So one of the things that you pointed out to me and this may help you better picture, you know, famous people who really don't like their fans are like mommy bloggers where they have to put on this veneer of being very Perfect.

And

Simone: not stressed and together and not

Malcolm: stressed. And yeah, like nothing's going on wrong in their life. And this causes them to have cognitive dissonance [00:09:00] around their interactions with people who say that they like them. And really interestingly, when they meet someone, probably the reason why the reaction is so viscerally negative with these individuals is the cognitive dissonance they experienced with every individual who's like, I really.

Feel like I have a connection to you is they don't like that. They are not the person that person has a connection.

Simone: Right. Right. Right. And yeah, I think a lot of when people get angry is when they personally, at least for me, like mostly whenever you see me angry and you think it's at you, it's because I'm mad at myself.

So that actually makes a lot of sense. And I also think maybe a lot of the, the discomfort with meeting fans is like, maybe they will discover it's a lie, which could also be

Malcolm: terrifying. I don't even think that's it. I think it's like the fan has a connection with an avatar of yourself that is better than who you really are.

Oh, so you're blinded too. Highlights your own flaws as an individual. So that's one way it could cause emotional pain. Another way is that it's just, [00:10:00] and this is the thing with our friends who are just like publicly. I, I would call like media engineered type famous. They, they typically have just completely personalities than you would expect.

So when you, like, if you get to know like a generic, I'd say like, let's say boy band celebrity or something like that, right? Their actual in person personalities are often just like entirely different than what you would think from their public personality. Which is, which is interesting because like when I think about the person who we're thinking about their in person personality is actually incredibly educated and erudite and sophisticated.

And like really deep into like, you know, whether it's like AI or, or, or genetics or like all of the stuff that like we talk about on this, like, like our sort of personality group. Right. And yet publicly they would be thought of as just like another ditzy celebrity. And, [00:11:00] and I think that that would cause me a lot of pain when I met someone and they were like, I'm, I'm a huge fan of yours.

I'm a huge, like, I feel like I already have a relationship with you and the person that they had a relationship with opposite these other like mommy bloggers types where the person they have a relationship with is actually better than who they really are, is actually so much less than what they really are.

That might make me feel... Yeah, pretty brutally, you know, every time that happened in the way that it made me feel. And, and especially if they just like totally politically misjudge what your actual views are and stuff like that. And, and, and they're almost signaling themselves as like the polar opposite of the real you.

Which I think is really interesting. But then the question is, and this is an interesting question for you. Do you think we'll maintain this? Because you had the thesis that, okay, if you get big enough, you eventually, or your image begins to disconnect from who you really are.

Simone: I think if I. We're acting in isolation that would totally happen because I just don't, I'm, [00:12:00] I'm, I'm, I would say not ever really acting myself when I'm in a group, like in person with other people, right?

Like, I'm that one of the reasons why we're sitting in separate rooms is I'm much more likely to be honest and myself and unfiltered if I'm in a room or like a room by myself

Malcolm: so reason. By the way, is that she is an AI iteration of myself. I just do the same thing twice and then put client filter.

Simone: There

Malcolm: was actually a a conspiracy theory about us a while ago. One of the earlier times we went viral. And the, the, the theory went, this was on Reddit that we were actually the same person because we were rarely in like the same picture. And this, this series would only bolster that. My favorite conspiracy theory about us that they said that it is impossible that somebody this weird exists in duplicate like they seem to hold a lot of the same ideas and nobody holds those ideas so how could two people meet each other who happened to be weird in exactly the same [00:13:00] way.

Simone: theory, it was more like, oh, that's, it was, it was, they were commenting on a picture of us in the article and, and they were saying, that's not really the prenatal list. Those are models that are posing as them. And I'm like, that's

Malcolm: my favorite. They go, that's not really ever. It was like that scene in Clueless when she thinks like the business women, and they're like, oh, they're all actually models, and they were trying to sound like smart and dismissive.

They're like, Ugh. There's people pictured in that article. Don't you know, that's not actually the pronatalist couple. That's just like a theory of what models posing of the pronatalist couple might look like. And talking about like a, and I, I couldn't have, when somebody. Is trying to hurt you, right? Like they're trying to insult you.

And yet they say something that is so profoundly complimentary. You know, that they were trying to belittle the movement by saying that.

Simone: Yeah. But anyway, Malcolm, if you were to go mainstream famous, I don't, I think you [00:14:00] would not change at all. You would go like full Trump or full Elon Musk. Like those are people who have gone mainstream famous who like.

Give zero s***s, like things change nothing about

Malcolm: themselves. I, I think you're right. And, and, and I would say that it is very interesting. If you look at on this channel, the older videos, the really old videos, like you search for the oldest videos on the channel. Cause we've been using someone's YouTube channel forever, you know,

Simone: very cruelly.

Do not let me delete

Malcolm: those videos. No, I do not. I love those videos. They represent a different time in your life, but you can see. Her personality comes off as much more of somebody who was beginning to model their personality and identity off of online influencers in these early sort of solo videos you did.

Watch them against someone. It's very interesting. My,

Simone: my social mode is just like any LLM. It is reinforcement learning based. I just did what I got.

Malcolm: Yeah, but if you look at older videos with me in them and I might even upload some of those because we had a, a different channel that I still [00:15:00] haven't taken down that we had some videos on, but like, we've got to figure out how to consolidate them.

But,

Simone: you've always been you. You should even take stuff from high school, where you're like, you know, it's all

Malcolm: still you. I come off as a very similar energy to the energy I have today and, and I find that interesting is, is it that I'm sort of like an anchor personality that draws you in and allows you to fix your personality because you're using me as an anchor?

Simone: You're an additional modeling factor that changes how I behave in public. But I will never be myself in public, because I hate being in public. So if I'm actually being myself in public, myself being myself in public is running the f**k away from public. It is leaving the room. So I can't, like, be honest and still be in a group of people, because if I'm not lying and acting like I'm okay, then I'm not there, right?

No, I agree

Malcolm: with that, but I feel like in these videos you very much act like yourself.

Simone: Yeah, because I'm in a room by myself right now. It's great. It's perfect.

Malcolm: [00:16:00] No, no threats other than the big looming mess outside your door. Sorry to interrupt.

Simone: I didn't forget

Malcolm: but Yeah, and they did. Yeah, this is interesting for me and I really wonder you know going forwards with our fans.

If this is something that changes, like do our personalities compromise going forwards and what would, how can we, you know, I mean, I do want to be the type of person who's still capable of like changing my mind when I get new information or have new ideas. I

Simone: never, you're still going to be, there's like the, the bigger question is like, if someone held a gun to our heads, would you actually be able to not?

And, and probably not, it would be the death of you. Like there is no world in which you can convincingly go mainstream. So don't worry about it. You'll never sell out. That's one thing I love about you. Okay.

Malcolm: Here's the question I have for you. Okay. Let's [00:17:00] do some theory crafting on individuals who are famous, who we don't know whether or not they're showing their genuine.

Ooh. Okay. Because I think what's really interesting is the way a person reacts when they meet. Fans, like a generic fan can, if our theory is right, it can tell you. So

Simone: Bill Murray is himself.

Malcolm: Oh my God. Funny you should mention Bill Murray. I happen to know Bill Murray as himself because Bill Murray goes to so this is a celebrity that I do know, but only from stories.

So Bill Murray goes to this golf championship. What was it called? The St. Andrew's open or whatever. We're like, you, you, you do golf.

Simone: You knew about it because you weren't seeing Andrews at the time. So I

Malcolm: was a student at St. Andrew's. And so one of the things that he was known for is even in my house, because my house used to be a party house before I moved in.

And, but I was really good friends with the people who did it. So they would host big parties every night. And he was the type of guy who would just walk in off the street. Cause he saw a party happening and, and hang out. And they were joking that he would like do the dishes. After the party like [00:18:00] insist on doing the dishes for the entire party afterwards, and I'm like, that's somebody who's just so genuinely loves the way that like people they don't know engage with them based on their public persona.

And so the opposite of a celebrity who's sort of hiding away from the public. Yeah,

Simone: celebrities don't like. Crash parties with Bill Murray. Seeing someone on the

Malcolm: street and being like, Hey, you're a student, can I come to your house for the party tonight?

Simone: Every story I've ever heard about Bill Murray is like, so based and I love it.

So he's definitely one of those people.

Malcolm: And that's a good example of a very public person. And, and yeah, and through seeing stuff like this, so like based on this theory, I would have been able to take that story that I knew about Bill Murray and then say, he probably is very much who he is in public in person.

Yeah, whereas I wonder somebody like, well, actually this is why I suspect Hillary Clinton seems to come off. So, jilted when she's talking to people at like conferences and stuff like that. You mean stilted? Yeah, like she [00:19:00] doesn't connect in the same way that Trump does because she isn't obviously feeding positive emotions from somebody saying, like, I know you like a very interesting meeting is the Nick Fuentes Trump meeting.

You can read about, like, what was actually going on during that meeting and the aid who is like, trying to protect Trump from this and. He was clearly just loving that this person liked him and was engaged with the things that he was saying. Whereas I, I don't think that you would get that same sort of just like, Cancel all my meetings.

I'm with somebody who likes me. No s**t. But here's a question I have for you. What do you think of Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson? I'm thinking of like conservative intellectual people who are really high up. Do you think that they are really themselves?

Simone: I think Andrew Tate is himself. I think they both are themselves.

Yeah. Well, I don't, I don't know about, yeah, I mean, Jordan Peterson probably isn't, I don't know enough, like, but when you look at the way that Andrew Tate set up his entire lifestyle, like that, that he lived with all his [00:20:00] cam girls and stuff, like. You don't do that like if you have a double life and you're hiding is like your real personality You don't make your life your celebrity life, but Tate's celebrity life was his life and he like yeah He's he is yeah,

Malcolm: so I'm actually argued.

He's probably an interesting scenario So I don't think anyone could 24 7 be who Andrew Tate's pretends to

Simone: be I know man I I legit think that You think he's a

Malcolm: human being capable of maintaining frame 24 7? Yes, because

Simone: I think he, he like, it is, it is his. His reason for living like everything is about like I am so tough and he wakes up in the morning and I am so tough and like that.

No, I really think like he lives for that more than fame, more than wealth or anything. It is, it is that vision. I think it is, is a beating heart. He is trying

Malcolm: to create like a piece of art and aesthetic vision with every aspect of how he interacts with

Simone: reality. Yeah. Yeah. He's like Barbie in the Barbie movie before she got weird.

Just 100 percent living [00:21:00] the.

Malcolm: I love this, Andrew Tate being like Barbie from the Barbie movie. He is. He's

Simone: doing his thing. No, no. What, like, 100%. No, I, I, I think it's all genuine. I, I don't think he slips. I don't think, I don't think for him, it is not maintaining frame because he is the frame. Like, I just, I, I can't emphasize this enough.

I feel, I feel like he's the real deal. And he monetizes that, you know, he makes it, he makes it seem like to other men that that's, that's achievable to them when it's not, it's just his neurotype. But when you look at also like genetically, like his father, like his genetic inheritance, I feel like it's literally like in his.

It's in his dunna to be like that, okay? It's done.

Malcolm: You listen to the stories from his father, and I don't know if these are made up or anything like that but they are very much that his father invented the philosophy he lives by and not himself. Well, his father

Simone: was a very, like, aggressive chess champion it just, like, I just, it's in his family.

It's his, like, entire genetic line, I think, to, to act like that. So he is the real deal. Who, who else? Who's, who's not? [00:22:00] Who do we have, like, evidence of super not the public image

Malcolm: thing? Well, I mean, so many celebrities complain about their fans. I think literally any celebrity that complains about their fans is probably not.

Yeah. And this is something you see sort of across stuff. Okay, here's

Simone: a great example. Megan and Harry, I guess.

Malcolm: I was going to say if we're talking about online celebrities. Yeah. Lindsay Ellis.

Simone: I don't, I don't know who that is well enough.

Malcolm: Yeah, so, Lindsay Ellis is the girl who was like the female film critic.

. Oh, the film, the Nostalgia Chick.

Yes, there was a nostalgia critic

who's a famous guy on YouTube and then he hired her to be like a female version of himself for like when that was necessary in videos and then she spun off and did her own thing and now she's like. She gets in fights with her fans, so she got in a big fight with a bunch of fans recently, and it's been this huge thing, and I get the impression, because she really seems to be sort of antagonistic with her fans these days that she was always sort of putting on a, a fake [00:23:00] facade.

Illuminati was that,

Simone: for sure. Who, Gandhi? Illuminati,

Malcolm: on YouTube. Oh, Illuminati, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's definitely another one. Yeah. I actually think it's much more common on the progressive side of things. And the reason why I think it's more common amongst progressive niche influencers is because the social rules that the progressive ideal of a person puts on the way people need to appear publicly.

They're unsustainable. That you're almost always lying about something about how you look. You cannot indulge in your flaws and still be liked by your community. You know, I think that we admit many things personally here or things that we have done in the past, which demonstrate that like we are okay with accepting our flaws and that we like don't mind them and that our community isn't going to hate us for that. Like, I, you know, I can, you can mention things you've thought in the past. I can mention, you know, things I've done in the past and, and we don't really get that negatively judged.

Whereas I [00:24:00] think that was in that community. You would be.

Simone: Yeah, well, even for, you know, having the wrong reactions to something, a wrong opinion, but no, who are, who are other mainstream, I guess, like every celebrity who reacts poorly. In public who, you know, like there's so many Reddit threads, which is like, Oh, like Reddit, tell us stories when you've met celebrities.

And then there's all the people who are like, Oh, this person was a dick at a restaurant. I guess it's kind of along those lines. Yeah.

Malcolm: Well, this has been a fascinating conversation to me, Simone, because I think it provides information on yeah, how you can see the world. And another story that I was going to tell with Trump, which is interesting to me is if you talk about somebody not really changing, one of, I think the most telling things about Trump is a lot of progressives will try to paint him as like an actual racist.

And it's like, if you look at the history of a lot of progressive online his influencers today, you will find that they have said, like, actually racist stuff in their use that they inward and stuff like that, like in their rise to fame, you look [00:25:00] at Trump when he's on like Howard Stern from like 30 years ago, how did he never say once anything explicitly racist?

Like, do you think this is a man with self control? Do you think this is a man? Who is capable of like tactically putting out even a fake personality. And I think that that's been part of his saving grace is he lacks the tactical self restraint to persistently and over the longterm put out a fake personality, but instead indulges.

And who he really is. And in many ways, people would traditionally think of as the flaws of a personality. Yeah. But he really indulges it. That's

Simone: interesting. Yeah. Looks like you've got a good future ahead of you then, Malcolm. Well,

Malcolm: let's hope. Let's hope. The political consultants don't make us take down all our social media

Simone: posts.

We won't listen to them. And we're not going to hire them anyway, so don't worry about it.

Malcolm: I love you. I love you too.

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