Hello, they banned the app that changed my life,
but stuff still happened.
So what's up?
I don't actually have like a fully structured thing today.
I'm just gonna yap.
I started on TikTok several years ago,
posting random crap, for no reason.
It was the pandemic, we were all going crazy.
Eventually I posted a friggin' cum joke
and that's who it went viral for me first
and got me any sort of audience.
That sounds, that tracks, it tracks, it really does.
From there I was just posting random stuff,
I was just memeing and doing random series.
I originally was doing a couple of series,
one was I'm the new God and here's all the decrees
I'm making and the other was my guide for men
on how to interact with women.
Way back when I had a fake conversation
where I literally used an object as a stand-in
for a woman, that's the joke,
because I was also saying don't objectify women.
Anyway, moving on.
I eventually started a blog called What's Going On
with a period, more of a statement of like what's going on.
This blog was just a place for me to vent a little bit.
Here's some stuff I'm reading
and here's what I have to say about it
and eventually I started just also posting videos
of the same format and now we're here.
In that span of time, I left my career
and did this full time, which was huge for me
because I've spent pretty much my entire life
being as safe as possible
and finally took a chance on myself to do this
and was it a financially sound decision?
No, but I'm much happier now.
And so eventually I settled on Stuff Keeps Happening
as the name of my show and I've been doing a lot of that
and all the while building a whole bunch of other stuff
like my community on Discord and my stream
and everything else that I've been working on.
I'm literally building games right now.
I have no shortage of things that I am more than excited
to be able to do, I of course have limited time and energy
but that's not gonna stop me from trying to do everything
I possibly can to bring a smile to your face.
I know a lot of people know me as like a news boy, right?
But that's not really my passion.
I just have a lot of things to say about stuff.
It's why I don't say that I'm a journalist
and it's why I don't say that I'm an activist
because I highly respect people who are really,
really talented journalists and activists
and I just don't count myself among them.
I just appreciate them deeply
because I far more see myself as just an entertainer
and maybe an educator and I just want to make people
have an easier time.
That's all I think I wanna do with my life, you know?
I've always been at my happiest
when I can make other people feel better.
Although he kind of super sucks now,
a quote from someone who I used to really look up to,
John Cleese, is something that sits in my head
which is paraphrasing,
there's never not a good time for comedy.
He went on to say that like even in the darkest of times
you could be at a funeral,
but if you crack a joke,
that means that there's still some humanity there.
And while, yes, there's some situations
where maybe don't crack a joke,
I do think it's important to remember
that we can always connect on comedy.
We can always find some way to laugh about something
and that's deeply necessary in a world
where there's not a lot to be happy about.
Things aren't going particularly well
for the people of the United States
and a lot of the world, honestly,
but we know it and at least we're talking
and at least we have each other.
Does that make everything better?
No, but it does give us something.
It does give us something to hold onto
besides just spiraling and feeling completely hopeless,
which we do still do, but if that's all we have,
if we didn't have the occasional laugh,
if we didn't have the occasional smile,
if we didn't embrace the absurdity
and accept that things are whack,
but at least we can laugh a bit, I wouldn't be here.
Let's just leave it at that.
And I don't mean here as in an app or video, I mean here.
As of right now, here is what we know
about the state of play for TikTok
and a few other upcoming events.
The TikTok ban has been upheld
by the Supreme Court unanimously.
Joe Biden said he's not going to enforce it,
he's gonna let Trump deal with it.
And Trump likes TikTok now
because he got kind of popular on it
and so that makes him happy about it.
Nevermind his entire ethos, he likes it now.
But what does that mean?
Like when has, depending on Trump to pull through
to do something hopeful ever worked?
But based on things right now,
we are expecting TikTok to go dark on Sunday
for all users in the US, period.
That may not happen, there may be some change,
but that's all we have to go off of right now.
And so as far as I'm concerned, that's how I'm operating.
I also think, and this is just purely my opinion,
I think that regardless of if TikTok is saved right now,
this is the functional end of TikTok culturally in America.
Best case scenario, it gets saved in air quotes
and is radically different, is moderated differently,
it has a different owner, the vibes aren't the same.
I don't see any other way
but being on life support in the future.
But I hope I'm wrong, I would very much like to be wrong.
What's very unfortunate is that there are swaths of Americans
who have never even taken a second to look at TikTok,
who think that they know everything there is to know about it
and truly believe that the app is a meaningless void
that has no value.
Instead of being used by 170 million Americans
and producing income for like seven million
small businesses and creators
to the tune of like over $10 billion a year.
Now also TikTok sucks, like it's a bad app
and algorithmic social media is bad in general
for people's brains and whatnot.
And also it is helping a lot of people
and connecting a lot of people for the good that it does do.
And banning it is bad policy and we know that
but it doesn't matter, it's not about privacy,
it's about business and global posturing.
Trump steps into the Oval Office on Monday
which is also MLK day, wow.
And also they've moved his inauguration
into the Capitol rotunda,
so all the people who have traveled to DC
to watch the inauguration live
are going to have to watch from the Capital One Arena
on a TV screen.
They're not particularly thrilled.
He's been telling big stories about all the things
he's gonna do on his first day in office
and that our heads are gonna spin
and he's gonna do all these executive orders and whatnot.
But of course it's Trump,
so every single thing he's ever said has been hedged.
So it's always we'll see what I do
or you're gonna be shocked by what I do
or I'll have to take a look at it
or I'll think about that and we'll see what happens.
Like that's not a statement of what's gonna happen.
That's not telling anybody what your policies are.
That's just waiting until the last second
to make a snap decision that serves you best.
So while there is absolutely reason to be concerned,
deeply about the incoming administration,
keep your wits about you.
Remember that they're going to do everything they can
to inundate you with so much chaos
that you cannot separate signal from noise.
And so let me say this,
and this goes out mostly to the folks on TikTok who watch me,
but this goes to everyone.
If you've never taken anything else away from me,
let it be this.
I frequently get comments from people saying
that they would never have known about something going on
unless they got it through TikTok
or wherever they were seeing it.
It's always whatever app they were on,
I would never have known this without this app.
I am not magic.
I do not reach into the ether to pull out the headlines.
I just read the news.
If nothing else, I recommend once a day, once a week,
something like that, just go to apnews.com
and check out what's on their front page.
AP News, the Associated Press, they are not perfect,
but they are generally fact-based reporting
and usually have whatever's the most important thing
right up top.
Many, many news organizations just take what the AP posts
and either directly reposts it or just rewrites it.
So if I am ever wondering like,
what is the latest on a given important situation
nationally and globally?
I will literally just go to apnews.com
as my first source to then figure out,
do I need to be concerned about this
and where can I get more information?
It is not my only source, it is just one,
but it's the one that I tend to go to
for casually being like, is anything going on?
They will usually have quick and easy to digest information
about current events quickly.
From there, if you are inclined, dig deeper,
Google things, it's not hard,
but please don't believe that you have no other way
to get information.
That is learned helplessness
and it only benefits the people who are at the top
who are wanting you to never learn more.
Unfortunately, it does take effort, but that's life, baby.
My plans moving forward are to lean further
into longer form content, both on YouTube
and Twitch and podcast and whatnot.
I also have my newsletter, which is completely free.
You can sign up for that.
There is a paid tier if you wanna support me,
but it's free.
And I'll just keep posting to every platform
that I'm on as long as I can, because that's what I do.
And I need to have some sort of income.
So yay, but for real, thank you all so very, very much.
I still think this is just the beginning for me.
So I got a lot, a lot I wanna do.
So take care, be well, and I'll see you soon.