Hello everybody, thank you all so much for listening
to Memingless, where we look into internet nonsense
and try to understand what in the hell it all
means. Lately, I've had a lot of guests on the
show, but I'm thankful to have my co -host back,
my very favorite person to podcast with, my friend
Bobby. Hello! Bobby, it's been too long since
you've been... on our show. It's been a while.
Yeah. Life has kind of happened a lot. Yeah,
a lot of life has happened. Yeah. That's for
sure. I'm back. Yes, and I'm so glad you're back.
Now, a lot of people at this point are probably
thinking that the podcast is just me, but no,
it's me and Bobby. Bobby's my co -host because
she's hilarious, and if you don't think so, you're
wrong. Yeah. For the record, I am extremely thankful
for everyone who has been on the show so far,
and I've got more guests coming up that I'm very
excited to have on, but there's just something
comforting about being in the studio with my
co -host. So, Bobby, Boberella, Bob Rule, I have
a meme for you to look at. I would like you to
describe it to our listeners and tell us how
it reads. All right, I'll do my best. All right,
so it looks like a school bus. I don't know.
They got kind of weird windows on here. We never
had blinds on our school bus. Anyway, there's
a bunch of young people. Young men? Young people
on this bus. And it says, and then the whole
bus clapped. And everybody on the bus has got
their hands up in the air. It looks like they're
clapping and rejoicing in a way. All right. Thank
you for that explanation. So, yeah, we've got
a bus full of people clapping. And it says, and
the whole bus clapped. So what got this meme
on my mind recently? was I was listening to a
podcast called Hood Politics. Listeners, if you
haven't listened to Hood Politics, you should
definitely check it out. The host prop is really
good at taking political and historical events
and concepts and situations and putting them
into like a clear modern language. And he's very
insightful and just fun to listen to in general.
I won't go into too much detail about what his
podcast episode was about, because if you want
to learn about it, you should listen to Hood
Politics. The episode is called It Gives Blacks
Rule. But basically he compares some supposed
evidence regarding recent events to something
that happened in 2015 where a white dude in Alabama
clearly faked a hate crime against himself and
said that it was perpetrated by black people.
Nice. You got to listen to that episode. It's
good. The event was so laughably false, though,
that it became a meme in itself. I remember the
situation. I remember finding it very funny because
of how stupid it was. These fake stories and
faked evidence seem to be still pervasive even
amongst younger people who have spent their entire
lives with access to the internet and have spent
their entire lives encountering absolute nonsense.
And one would think that they would have more
keen awareness of what is and is not valid. And
that takes us to our meme. So, to illustrate
the point of this meme, I'm going to read a story
for you. Alright. And this is potentially the
origin of the meme. So this is a post originally
on Facebook, and it says, or it reads, Oh my
God, I just witnessed the single greatest moment
in human history. Wow. On a bus heading home
from the city, I was greeted by an incredibly
nice Russian -sounding bus driver with a smile
on his face. About four stops later, In the valley,
of course, a bogon hops on with his skanky, I
assume, girlfriend. A bogon is like, so it's
an Australian term for, the best word in American,
the best term in American would be like riffraff.
Okay. So a bogon hops on with his skanky, I assume,
girlfriend. May have been his sister, may have
been both. Naturally, he does not have money
for the bus, so of course the bogun, henceforth
referred to as Shitskull, blames the bus driver.
Using all manner of racial slurs, loud profanity,
and general offensive douchebaggery, Shitskull
proceeds to be an asshole and make the entire
bus shuffle uncomfortably in their seats. All
except one man. Ah, this man. I wish I could
be this man. The average looking hero that stepped
up to defend the port bus driver. Quote, look,
mate, he's just doing his job. How's about you
calm down? I'm not going to keep doing that.
We have Australian listeners and they're going
to make fun of me. How's about you calm down
and leave the bus driver alone? It's not his
fault you can't pay. The logic of the situation
made his slate. The logic of the situation made
a slight whistling noise as it passed over Shit
Skull's head. As it passed over Shit Skull's
head. This reads so stupid. We could see the
Tonka truck gears clunk and grind in this man's
underdeveloped cranium. Calm down. It must be
a challenge. Quote, Are you trying to start me,
cunt? You wanna go, you fucking cunt? You wanna
fucking go me? Ah, truly the words of a poet.
But even Oscar Wilde himself couldn't have predicted
the Batman -esque reaction of, yeah, actually,
let's do this, off the bus. You could hear a
penny drop in the 256 megabyte brain inside Shit
Skull's shitty little skull. Finally, the judging
eyes of the bus coupled with the high -pitched
slurring voice of his sister -daughter telling
him to Take him, and quoting directly, don't
take none that shit, babe, convinced both of
them to step off the bus ready to fight. Calmer
than a monk on morphine, our hero turns to the
bus driver and simply says, shut the door, mate,
and walks back to his motherfucking seat. The
bus driver shut the door, drove away, and the
entire bus erupted. We were clapping, we were
cheering, I gave Shit Skull the finger out the
window, and I'm pretty sure people hugged. That's
a great story. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, great story.
So clearly this exchange didn't happen. Yeah.
So because first off, I'm pretty certain that
Australians don't hug each other ever. No, no.
That was a joke. Okay, shout out. Never met me.
Shout out to our Australian listeners. Actually,
for any Aussies listening, I do have another
joke. So, because of that joke, I actually ended
up reading... a lot about affection and dating
and romance in Australia because ADHD brain.
And I learned some interesting things, but that's
not what this episode's about. This episode's
about clapping, I guess. So because of the obviously
absurd ending to the story, phrases like, and
then everybody clapped, or and then everybody
applauded, became a sort of meme response to
express skepticism toward a story. Another example
of this is using the phrase, cool story, bro.
In order to be, in order to pretend to be neutral,
I'm going to give an example of a right -wing
lie and a left -wing lie to which the phrase,
and then everybody clapped, would be appropriate.
Or, in legalese, mimo apropo. Here is an example
from the left. I was sitting on the bus the other
day and at the back of the bus was a lesbian
couple holding hands and giggling to each other.
An elderly woman came and sat beside me and mumbled
to herself, disgusting homosexuals. I then turned
to her and say, I'm gay. She shouted, driver,
stop the bus and make this homosexual move away
from me. Driver, a big Jamaican man, stopped
the bus and pointed toward me and where the other
women were sitting and said, you, off the bus.
At first, I thought he was talking to me. When
I questioned if it was me, he was asking to get
off the bus. He replied, no, her, and pointed
at the woman. And the driver said, my son is
gay and I will not allow homophobes on my bus
and the bus will not move until you're off. The
woman then got off the bus and said, you're all
going to hell, which the driver replied to by
saying, well, I'll see you there as you're not
getting into heaven if you can't accept that
some people are gay. He then closed the bus doors
and drove off. An appropriate response to this
story would be, and then everybody on the bus
clapped and cheered, and I'm pretty sure some
people were fucking. Now, here is an example
from the right. Got stuck in a networking event
with a conservative woman that was voting for
Kamala. You, of all people? I said, why? Embarrassed,
she said, for women's rights. I asked her husband.
He sheepishly said Kamala. Remaining calm, I
took the time to explain the abortion laws and
explain it's not what she has heard. She said
she didn't know all this and will research and
change her vote for Trump if I was right. Husband
fist bumped me and whispered, Thank you. Winning.
An appropriate response to this story would be,
And then everybody clapped and hugged, and the
bus driver came down just to give me a high five.
And that bus driver's name? Jesus Christ. Later,
I found out Jesus had slipped a letter into my
pocket. But it wasn't just a letter. It was a
free pass to sin and still get into heaven. I'm
going to use it to say the N -word. So approaching
these goofy stories with skepticism is a fun
and in some ways valuable exercise to encourage
others to question the validity of a lot of the
nonsense we see online. Now, I have another story
that is really interesting regarding this type
of skepticism. It might seem trivial at first,
but there is a lesson to be learned here. In
September of 2019, on the website TombRaiderForums
.com, the threads were going crazy about the
game Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which had just
come out. And in a spoilers thread, a user named
Tombstone asked why nobody is talking about a
letter at the end of the game from a character
named Nautla. Immediately, people started calling
Tombstone out for lying about this supposed ending
and saying that Tombstone had fallen victim to
some of the nonsense rumors that were getting
spread around about not having some involvement
in the game. Tombstone is on a thread full of
Tomb Raider fans who have beaten the game and
know that Tombstone is clearly making this up,
right? So to anybody who had finished the game,
they know that that doesn't happen. This backlash
did not stop Tombstone from continuing, however.
Tombstone posted a picture of the letter from
Natla. Immediately, people called him out for
photoshopping the picture. It was low quality
and he had taken a picture of the screen with
his phone, so looking for evidence of photoshop
was not really an option. But people had fun
with skeptical responses. One of them... responding
with a picture of Pikachu in the image and saying,
I found the Pikachu ending. Like, wow. And, you
know, just making fun of this dude or this person.
I don't know if it's a man or a woman. So the
reason why somebody might make something like
this up is because it would gather a lot of attention
if somebody had noticed an Easter egg involving
Nautla that no one else did because Jacqueline
Nautla was the antagonist in the original Tomb
Raider that came out in 1996 and had not been
part of the series for over a decade at that
point. So this would be a major comeback if it
were teased in the series, right? But this would
also be a great troll if you could convince other
people that it was true. Right. I'm going to
read a little bit of the exchanges here. All
right. So the exact post from Tombstone reads,
nobody has brought up the letter Laura gets from
Natla yet. You know, just to kind of throw it
into the conversation. See if, you know, see
if you can get people worked up with this kind
of thing, you know? Sure. So the responses are.
The very first response is, there's no letter
from Nautla. It's a photoshopped image and a
rumor. And somebody says, she doesn't get a letter
from Nautla. And then more and more. And so Tombstone
fights back and says, yes, she does, LMAO. I
have the game unpatched. And the letter says,
Lady Laura Croft from Jacqueline Nautla. It's
real. Or are you guys trolling? Somebody said,
post a screenshot then. And Tombstone responded
with, I did. Why are you people saying it's fake?
The fuck? So then that's when somebody responds
with that Pikachu response. So the person posts
another photo or posts a photo of their screen
with that letter on it. And somebody says, could
be a Photoshopped image. It's just being viewed
on a TV screen. So that doesn't really prove
anything. Right. You know, but this person is
still pushing, still pushing for it. So eventually
they, they tell the person that they're going
to, they'll believe them if he can post a video
of it happening. Right. Okay. So he says, he's
like, he's like, you know, I don't have the,
you know, I don't have internet. I don't have
a way to screen cap, you know, whatever. So he's
using the internet on his phone. Tomb Raider
forums. is a simple forum website, so it doesn't
take a lot of loading or anything. So if you've
got a poor internet connection, it is accessible
to somebody who may not have a good internet
connection and wouldn't be able to upload easily
a video of them capturing their gameplay or whatever.
But eventually, he does post a video of it. So
people respond saying, wow, that proved it. He
absolutely proved it. He proved this ending that
nobody else found, nobody else talked about,
never mentioned by the developers, never mentioned
by anybody reviewing the game, never mentioned
anywhere. He proved it, Bobby, by posting that
video. Yeah, because you can't fake a video.
That's right. I mean, if you got a video, that's
concrete evidence right there. But a lot of people
were like, oh, wow, okay, you proved it. And
this person responded with a tombstone. responded
with a much deserved kiss my bubble butt haters
it's a classy response yeah love it though uh
so there were some issues with the event right
you know so no reviewers had done it the game
had been out for over a week nobody else found
that ending um and so people started saying well
the you know even if you had an unpatched version
the patch notes don't even mention changing an
ending to the game. They were like things like,
you know, fixing, I think, hair physics on Laura
and adding like a photo mode where you could
like, you know, control the camera and make,
you know, take photos in the game, stuff like
that, you know, little patches like that. And
those were in the patch notes, nothing about
changing the ending of the game. So nothing about
any of that. So this clearly made up video. Yeah.
So I'm going to read a quote from. The developers
of the game. During the course of development
on Shadow of the Tomb Raider, multiple post -credits
scenes were explored. Unfortunately, one of the
directions that was considered but not chosen
was mistakenly included in the game. Tombstone
was fucking right. Tombstone was telling the
truth the whole fucking time. He just happened
to find something that nobody else did. That's
crazy. Yeah, this weird situation where he's
the only person on all of the internet who just
runs into this ending and is like, why isn't
anybody talking about this? It's because he's
the only fucking one. But he was right. It was
true. It got released by mistake, which is a
huge fucking mistake by the developers. Oh, yeah.
Fucking nuts is that. So it turned out he was
right the whole time. If I were in that situation,
I'd be ready to think it was fake. Right. Because
that would be my, I would respond with fun skepticism.
You know, like the everybody clapped or cool
story bro or that kind of thing. Or the Pikachu
response, you know, stuff like that. Right. People
were having fun with their skepticism with it.
But turned out Tombstone, when he told everybody
to kiss my bubble butt haters, Tombstone deserved
that. He deserved to say that. Yeah. So. Skepticism
is generally a good thing. We should approach
things with some level of critical thinking that
does not leave us open to grifters that are telling
us what we want to hear. However, sometimes too
much skepticism can lead to speculations and
outright conspiracies, and once again leave us
vulnerable to grifters. When I say grifters,
I mean people who are selling you lies in order
to make money. or make some kind of political
change, or they're shilling for certain politicians
or companies, or they're trying to create a narrative
to protect themselves legally. So, you know,
or we end up hurting people like Tombstone, you
know, who was fucking right the whole time. So,
I want to address briefly, after the Charlie
Kirk assassination, there were text messages
that were released that the assassin had allegedly
sent to his girlfriend. And in this conversation,
there was evidence, you know, somewhat displaying
a motive, things like that. Now, this was met
with a lot of skepticism. And we're talking skepticism
from both sides. And when the text messages were
released, I had seen people post and had even
people say in person. Somebody, I almost said
who, but somebody had said, cool story, bro,
out loud when they were reading them on their
phone because I had told her about the text messages.
So that is why this whole everybody clapped thing
is relevant right now. It's because people on
the right and the left are kind of meeting this
claim of evidence coming from the FBI with that
same kind of skepticism. Even though people on
the right and the left are both skeptical of
the text message exchange. They have different
reasons for being skeptical. And they also have
different theories as to why it would be faked.
There are people on the left who are saying things
like, this isn't how a person talks. Right and
left are saying that this is not how a normal
22 -year -old talks. I would argue a normal 22
-year -old doesn't go and fucking assassinate
somebody either. So trying to put normal talking
on a guy who's definitely not normal. That doesn't
work for me. That does not work for me. That
is not convincing. But then there are people
on the right saying that the conversation was
fabricated in order to absolve the trans person
involved from involvement, to show that they
weren't involved in the killing and didn't know
about it when really they were probably behind
it the whole time. So dumb conspiracies are being
floated around. When I was reading these text
messages, I was also skeptical. But the conversation
does not feel natural. That doesn't mean anything
to me. Maybe they just talk weird. Also, when
you're in the situation running from the police,
who knows how natural your conversation is going
to sound, right? Right, yeah. So my skepticism
with the text messages comes from the fact that
it doesn't come from the fact that he doesn't
talk like a normal 22 -year -old or anything.
Some people are saying, like, well, autocorrect,
there's no... bad autocorrect in there that happens
you know when you're texting in a hurry and stuff
like that it doesn't come my skepticism doesn't
come from any of that I think my skepticism it
started when I was reading the part where his
alleged girlfriend is asking you're not the one
who did it are you and he doesn't response with
yes I'm sorry or yeah I'm sorry he responds with
I am I'm sorry Again, this is only speculation.
I want to emphasize the fact that I'm going to
employ some speculation here. So don't take what
I'm about to say as fact. If you're a listener,
don't assume what I'm saying is absolutely true.
I find these text messages hard to believe because
the way it started at that, I am, I'm sorry,
because it reads almost like it was worded exactly
the way it would need to be worded. if a prosecution
needed to present it as a confession. Whereas
if he would have said yeah or yes, there could
have been some speculation as to or possibility
that he misunderstood or misread the question
or something like that. But if he says I am,
then that's self -implicating. And the response
didn't feel natural to me, of course. Like the
conversation, none of it does. But my suspicion
comes from the fact that it reads like it's specifically
a confession. Right. Then he also describes that
he did the killing. He explains why. He also
describes the murder weapon, the fact that he
hid it, that he was trying to hide from police
and retrieve the weapon, that he's trying to
return to his vehicle and escape. He also says
in the text messages that he's done a good job
not leaving any evidence behind. And he's taking
the time to text all this while he's running.
So, yeah, that and also I think I did a pretty
good job not leaving any evidence behind. As
I type out all the evidence. Yeah, the evidence
right on the phone. Yeah, they can trace all
that. They can see that. Even after you delete
it, they can get it back. Yeah. And in it, he
says, delete this exchange. Okay. Everybody knows
you can still find those, right? There's a way
to find those text messages. I mean, you would
still probably delete them, right? Well, obviously,
yeah. But you wouldn't think that that would
fix anything. But then, conveniently, he also
tells his girlfriend not to show up in the media
and not to talk to the media, you know, and not
make any public appearances. That's also very
convenient, right? Because we still haven't,
we don't get to see her, you know? We don't get
to see this person, this supposed trans person
that they're, you know, that was the secret mind
behind this, you know. supposedly it's a trans
person, his girlfriend. Supposedly she's a trans
woman. And supposedly he confessed all this stuff
to her, including describing the fucking murder
weapon. And they found, and we are actually going
to do an episode on trolls and memes, because
there were memes etched into the bullets that
he used to kill Charlie Kirk. Okay. One of them
was a meme about finding a bulge, you know, between
somebody's legs. Right. It's an old meme. It
comes from, I believe, furry culture. And so
the FBI had come out right away and interpreted
this as trans ideology because there was a bulge,
you know. So we're going to go into some details
about memes and stuff like that, you know, because
we're the meme channel. Well, did he have any
of our memes on the bullets? No, nothing that
we've covered, I don't think. But we're going
to go into detail of that because it is a little
weird that we haven't addressed and somebody
was literally killed by memes. So that is something
that I have been intentionally quiet about because
of the lack of information that was surrounding
it. But there is an episode in the works that's
coming soon. Okay. But I just I find it convenient
that he's described and listed every single thing
a prosecution would need and conveniently told
the person he's confessing it all to to never
show up in media. Right. You know, it's just
it's I don't buy it. Now, I don't believe that
this was a complete conspiracy to take out Charlie
Kirk. I'm not convinced by any of those conspiracy
theories, and I'd rather not dive into them right
now. I am just expressing my own skepticism with
that conversation specifically. That does not
mean it's not true. It could very much be a real
conversation, but to me it reeks. It really reeks.
And again, I don't know that it's not true. I
just know that I began reading the conversation
with the assumption that it was true, and I ended
reading that conversation with a lot of suspicion.
That being said, this style of skepticism and
speculation, responding with humor, memes and
complete dismissal of the story altogether, it
has become somewhat of a hallmark of the Internet.
Looking back at the Internet history, it seemed
early on people were more willing to, like, people
were more willing to believe nonsense. And now
people wear their skepticism almost like a badge
of honor. You know, like the skepticism is really
encouraged online now. Yeah. In some cases, almost
too much. where we're not believing actually
true things, you know? Myself doing that. Like,
I'll be going through Facebook and be like, I
don't believe any of this shit. You know, it's
like National Geographic or something like that.
Like, they're going to lie. I took a picture
of my cat in the living room, and as soon as
it popped up after, like, I was looking at it,
there was a little tweak, a little initial reaction
of... That's AI. I took the fucking picture.
And there was still that little, like, check
for AI, you know? Anything that's too cute or
too perfect in any way, like, that's fake. Too
big, too fast, too, like, or, yeah, set up just
absolutely perfectly. Like, almost, it's most
images online at this point are AI, it seems
like. So I had that same little reaction. I took
the fucking photo, right? I know it's not AI.
I took it. But that part of my brain, that defense
mechanism is there now because we're bombarded
with nonsense. Yeah. And I just don't believe
anything anymore. Yeah, exactly. And, you know,
it become kind of a nihilist, like just because
of how much fucking fake shit is out there. And
so like early on in the Internet, a lot of information
got spread because people were more willing to.
They were less skeptical when the Internet first
came about because. Right. They weren't well
practiced. They hadn't been fooled yet. Yeah,
they hadn't been fooled enough times yet, you
know. And so misinformation got spread, including
things like how Pepsi was putting out cans that
had the Pledge of Allegiance on them. And they
wanted to not put Under God on the cans because
Pepsi, they're a bunch of heathens, you see.
That's fucking stupid, right? No company is going
to take that risk. It's not going to happen.
That's dumb. And it's dumb to believe. But a
lot of people believed it because they hadn't
run into. plethora of lies that is on the internet
right now. They haven't become familiarized with
the amount of bullshit there is. There's a lot
of bullshit. And especially early on and still
mostly today, a lot of conspiracy theories and
nonsense on the internet was the realm of libertarians,
far right and right wing publications, radio
shows and the like. What worries me right now
is that Skepticism has become such a badge of
honor that we are finding conspiracies showing
up more often on the left. And a lot of it has
to do probably with the fact that our current
administration has given us a lot of reason not
to trust them. And grifters are filling the gaps
of our skepticism. Our most recent episode, called
Be Careful With Donald Trump Memes, that I did
with Dr. Hoda, spoke about how we need to be
careful with our sources. Even when something
seems to fit our narrative, even if it's something
that would support a cause that we fight for,
you know, that we are pushing or it supports
our values in some way, we still need to be careful
with that information because sometimes we could
be the victims of bullshit. Oh, yeah. The reason
why a lot of people on the right, though, were
easy targets for grifters selling conspiracy
nonsense. is because a lot of the information
from mainstream publications were things that
people on the right did not want to believe,
including a lot of very well fact -checked sources.
So the skepticism gaps on the right were a denial
of factual reality. So where the grifters get
to step in is to fill those gaps with convenient
explanations or stories, fabricated evidence,
that kind of thing, and stuff that confirms what
the right wing wants to believe. Skepticism is
good, but an unhealthy over -skepticism leads
to speculation, like I demonstrated with the
text messages. Speculation leads to a desire
for an explanation that is more satisfying. And
a lot of us like to believe that we are satisfied
by facts, but what's often the case is, you know,
especially with online content, is that... People
have a tendency to seek out not what is real,
but what verifies what they already want to believe.
I think it's extremely important that those on
the left do not fall in the same patterns of
confirmation -seeking behaviors that can lead
to weaknesses in our reason that would be targeted
by grifters just as they were employed against
people on the right by figures like Alex Jones,
Turning Point USA, and sadly, Coast to Coast
AM. I miss the Art Bell days. That show used
to be fun. So we should keep an open mind to
the fact that we can be easily wrong, and we
can be easily fooled, and we should give more
consideration to the things that we don't want
to believe. But we should definitely employ skepticism
when reading clearly made up stories online.
We should also employ skepticism when we are
being told by a profoundly corrupt administration
that the person who killed the friend on the
right spelled out all the necessary evidence
in a text message. Or that someone who shot at
an ICE facility wrote anti -ICE. A phrase no
one anywhere uses on a bullet with a fucking
pen. But let's also give some grace. As hard
as it is to believe, maybe people did clap on
the bus. But one thing I know for sure, Tombstone
was fucking right. So what do you think? I think
you got some good points in there. You should
take everything with a grain of salt. Yes. Yeah,
I think one of the best ways to approach, especially
stories being sold by public figures, is to find
if there are independent sources also corroborating
that same story. And are they using sources?
How do they know the information they're selling
you? That's also very important. Yeah. It doesn't
it wouldn't take long. Somebody who's constantly
spouting bullshit like Alex Jones. It wouldn't
take long to find that a claim that he has made
is false because sometimes he does use a source,
but he either didn't read it, doesn't understand
it or just goes by the headline. Right. And if
you were to read into things and fact check people
like that, then you're going to find very quickly
who the grifters are. who the liars are, the
ones who can source their information. And when
you look at those sources, it does verify the
information. That is more likely to be true.
Does it guarantee that you're never going to
be fooled? Does it guarantee that you're not
going to run into bullshit and somehow believe
it? No. But it's a healthy skepticism to look
into things, to try to understand them. So instead
of doing an immediate backlash where we could
We could end up having a victim like Tombstone.
Or instead of just accepting things at face value,
it's okay to approach things with a healthy skepticism
and see where the actual evidence is. Because
there are sources that you can use. There are
independent sources that can help corroborate
stories. But the bus stories, a little harder
to corroborate. Although I think, you know, he
would have somebody on that bus who could also
say, oh, yeah, it was there. It happened. You
know, I don't know. Seems like, I don't know.
That's stupid. Yeah. Stupid. A little bit. Well,
thank you all so much for listening. Goodbye,
everybody. Bye. And then everybody clapped.