Hello, everybody. Thank you all so much for listening
to Memingless, where we look into the spread
of nonsense online and try to understand what
in the hell it all means. I am your humble host,
Nate. And should I invite Bobby? No, too late.
I'm in. You know, I'm so glad you stuck with
the theme of kind of screwing it up first. So,
Bobby, Miss Bobbington. I probably did bobblehead,
didn't I? I don't know. I'm sure I had to have
done it. Probably. It seems like it's a pretty
obvious one. Yeah. I probably did miscrabobble.
I don't think that one. Let's do miscrabobble.
I like that one, yeah. Yeah. So I have a meme
for you to look at, and I would like you to explain
how it looks and how it reads to our listeners.
All right. I like this guy. Okay. So we got a
big old Yosemite Sam here. He's got his guns
out. He's ready to go. At the top it says, there's
no such thing as strong coffee. At the bottom
it says, just overly sensitive girly men. All
right. He would think that. All right. Yeah.
So I actually was coming across variations of
this type of meme. Somebody had posted on Reddit
something that one of their family members had
posted to Facebook. The original meme that I
saw. Now, when I first saw this meme, I thought
of a coffee recall from back in 2017. A product
from the coffee maker Death Wish Coffee was pulled
from the shelves, and I had always assumed that
was because Death Wish Coffee had too much caffeine.
It was marketed as the strongest coffee globally,
often labeled with warning world's strongest
coffee and even calling itself the galaxy's strongest
coffee. Wow. Yeah. Some strong coffee. I mean,
I honestly. It seems like a pretty safe bet that
if it's the strongest coffee in the world, it's
probably the strongest coffee in the galaxy.
Probably. Yeah. Probably not a lot of other coffees
out there. Yeah. Yeah. I'd imagine if there was
even something similar, it'd be called something
else. Probably. It'd be kind of hilarious, though,
if the little Mars rover found, like, a Starbucks.
Yeah. I would be so upset. Because, like, when
I went to the Forbidden City in Beijing, the...
There was a little coffee shop there and I was
told, like, inside the Forbidden City. And I
was told that originally it was going to be a
Starbucks. Okay. And you know how frustrated
I would be? I was actually, while I was there,
I was trying to avoid American culture. I was
trying to immerse myself in Chinese culture and
the Chinese language. You know how frustrated
I would be? In the Forbidden City, like, within
the walls, and there's a fucking Starbucks in
there? That would be so unbelievably irritating
to me. And plus, Starbucks, it's overpriced.
And in my opinion, that coffee is overly acidic
too. But maybe I'm just one of those girly men
that Yosemite Sam's talking about. But this product
from Death Wish Coffee, it seemed like a bad
idea to me at the time, which is probably why
I had assumed that the recall was due to people
maybe having like heart palpitations or something.
An average cup of coffee. Has about 113 to 247
milligrams of caffeine in a 12 -ounce cup. Wow.
While Death Wish Coffee was reported to have
as much as 708 milligrams of caffeine in a 12
-ounce cup. Wow. Which is well over the 400 milligram
limit that's recommended for healthy adults by
most healthcare professionals. Wow. Yeah. So.
I was kind of curious about what makes a bag
of coffee grounds that much stronger than an
average one. So I kind of looked into it, and
apparently the process involves processing Robusta
beans. So they process it where it's grown. They
roast them at the manufacturing sites. And most
coffees are made with Arabica beans, which have
genetically lower... caffeine content than Robusta
beans, and then brewing and roasting techniques
further affect the caffeine concentration in
the coffee. Okay. Honestly, I had no idea that
coffee could vary so dramatically in caffeine
content. Yeah, I'm surprised to hear that. Yeah,
but it turns out that wasn't the reason for the
Death Wish recall. Okay. Apparently, the canning
process of their nitro cold brew left the drink
at high risk of botulism. Hmm. Okay. Regardless...
I would argue that there is such a thing as coffee
that's too strong, considering that a 12 ounce
cup of regular brewed death wish coffee could
lead to caffeine content far exceeding the maximum
recommended by the FDA. And that's our episode.
Thank you all so much for listening. I'm kidding.
Actually, I kept reading because this meme got
my brain all in a stir. I couldn't let go of
certain curiosities regarding something. A little
more insidious about this type of meme. So, grab
a dangerously strong beverage, sit back, and
learn how to be a manly rube. Bobby, do you want
to be a manly rube? Oh, always. Oh, yeah. That's
my dream. Let me tell you how. Okay, hit me.
The year is 1889. Pitcher Pud Galvin was on the
mound. After having some games in his recent
history that didn't quite live up to his reputation,
PUD was about to pitch a game that would create
one hell of a buzz. I'm sorry, are you saying
PUD? PUD. P -U -D. Yeah, PUD got his nickname
because his pitches were so powerful that it
would turn batters into pudding. Oh, okay. Yeah.
And when I first read this nickname, I was picturing
the metaphor as the batters being like goo -ified
into like human pudding. But I guess at the time,
the phrase was more similar to saying somebody
has like jello legs. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. It
was like it was a common phrase at that time.
Also, I couldn't find any contemporary source
calling him Pud. So I think he got that nickname
posthumously. The reason this game would cause
such a stir wasn't because Pudd would pitch a
really good game. It wasn't just because of that.
But he would do so with the help of a special
drug created by a brilliant scientist. In fact...
PUD is widely considered to be the first American
athlete to be openly doping. Dr. Charles Edward
Brown Sicard had invented an elixir made from
testicular blood, semen, and dog and guinea pig
testicles, which Sicard had first tested on himself.
Wow. I love a concoction. Yeah. So in Sicard's
cut time, the subject of experimentation was
often the scientists themselves. In fact, Sicard
suffered from lifelong gastric reflux as a consequence
of sampling his own stomach acid using an absorbent
material at the end of a string. Wow. Yeah. Yeah,
that fucked him up for life. Like, for the rest
of his life, he had gastric reflux. I'm sure
he did. Wow. You know, okay, so to be a doctor,
you gotta spend a lot of time in college, right?
What do you suppose this guy was like in college?
I bet he has some stories. Yeah. Well, actually,
there are. So I didn't include this in the script
because it didn't have anything to do with the
subject. But there was one point where as part
of an experiment, he had covered himself in I
think it was like some kind of lacquer or something.
And one of his students found his body like not
moving, not conscious, nothing, just laying on
the floor of the lab. All brown. This is a white
dude. Completely brown. And Sicard kind of reprimanded
him a little bit for interrupting the experiment.
This guy was nuts. I became a big fan of this
dude as I was reading about him. He is fantastic.
I love this guy. So, Sicard reported his findings
of his elixir while subcutaneously injecting
it. He reported that his physical strength had
been returning, and being the ever -diligent
scientist, also reported on the return of his
cognitive abilities, his overall energy, and
even the robustness of his stream when he urinated.
Yeah, he wrote... The average length of the jet
during the 10 days that preceded the first injection
was inferior by at least one quarter of what
it came to be during the 20 following days. Sicard,
like most aging people, was also plagued with
constipation. Or as he put it, one of the most
troublesome miseries of advanced life consists
of the diminu... diminution of the power to defecate,
a power which he reported had returned following
his injections. He actually said that that was
the most radical change that he experienced,
and I wondered if maybe the concoction he was
injecting was just giving him diarrhea. Probably,
yeah. Like, I don't doubt that grinding up, you
know, animal testicles and injecting it could
lead to, you know, maybe a bit of soft stools,
as they say. So after Pud Galvin pitched a winning
game using the elixir, the excitement surrounding
this treatment grew quickly. The Washington Post
published an article stating that if there were
any doubt in the elixir's efficacy, then Pud's
performance on the mound should have put those
doubts to rest. The elixir was such a huge sensation,
there was even a song about it. And it went like
this. The latest sensations, the set card elixir
that's making young kids of the withered and
gray. There'll be no more pills or big Dr. Bills
or planting of people in churchyard clay. Wow.
Yeah, that last line suggests no more death,
and that is why Charles Edward Brown Sicard is
still alive today at 160 -something. Wow, let's
get him on the show. Here he is, folks. No, unfortunately,
I'm kidding. He died, and so did everybody else
from that time. Oh, sure. Yeah. So, Sicard never
made any money off of his elixir. In fact, he
even provided it for free to his colleagues for,
you know, experimental purposes. Sure. So, by
all means, Sicard doesn't seem to be a grifter
of any kind. However, this didn't mean that others
weren't willing to bank on the hype. His elixir,
or at least things claiming to be the elixir,
were sold with his name on it, but with no actual
connection to him financially. There was widespread
reporting of the efficacy of his tonic. But later
experiments showed that the positive results
were certainly, almost certainly, a placebo effect.
Which kind of put to rest the claims of the 1889
article in the Washington Post that said that
Pud Gavling's game was proof that the elixir
worked. Or at least one would think. But a quote
from a 2009 article from the Washington Post
reads, The secret to Galvin's success, it may
have been something called the brown cicard elixir,
as if they hadn't learned anything in the past
120 years. Yeah, that was in the Washington Post,
despite the fact that Pudd became the first pitcher
to win 300 games in 1888, the year before he
pitched that elixir game. But studies involving
testicular health had suggested that testicles
had some connection to virility. Observations
in animals and people who had lost the function
of their testicles or lost them altogether seem
to indicate this connection as well. Today, we
understand that the male sex glands produce testosterone,
but this wasn't really known in Pudd and Sicard's
time. Finally, in 1935, Organon became the first
drug manufacturer to isolate testosterone, and
it took 220 pounds of bull testicles to obtain
a thimbleful. Wow. Poor bulls. Yeah. The problem
is that testosterone is not stored in the testicles.
It's a hormone that's produced on demand and
flows through the bloodstream. So basically,
people who eat bull testicles for the testosterone
are barking up the wrong sack. And injecting
testicles subcutaneously likely has no real effect
on virility either. All right. Selling ineffective
tonics to improve manliness sounds pretty familiar
today, and over the years there were various
other treatments being sold to aging men to make
them young and virile again. Even partial vasectomies,
specifically the Steinach method, were sold as
a form of rejuvenation, again resulting in what
was most likely a placebo effect. The Steinach
method involves tying off the vas deferens, which
is the duct that leads from the testicles to
the urethra. And this was popularized first in
Vienna, I think. People were getting Steinacht,
as they called it. And men were touting about
their regained creativity and vitality. And in
at least one case, second puberty. That would
suck. Yeah, a dude went through his second puberty.
It wasn't anything fun the first time. I don't
want to do it again. Yeah, no, I don't. I don't.
So Dr. Eugene Steinach described his patients
as, quote, changed from feeble, parched, dribbling
drones to men of vigorous bloom who threw away
their glasses, shaved twice a day, dragged loads
up to 220 pounds, and even indulged in such youthful
follies as buying land in Florida. Whoa. Yeah,
yeah. And that is some good grifter nonsense
if I've ever heard it. I love that he included
committing youthful follies, or in other words,
doing something fucking stupid as a selling point
of the procedure. Well, sure. Keeps your day
interesting. You never know what you're going
to do. I picture him being like one of those
doctors, like on, like, you know, the old grifters,
like with the cart that show up in town, you
know, they sell some nonsense. All the snake
oil. Come, let me pinch off one of your sack
tubes and you'll be feeling dumber in no time.
But Dr. Steinock rode that re -masculinization
wave pretty hard. He also had some pretty problematic
beliefs about masculinity. He thought if he could
surgically implant a straight man's testicle
into a gay man's scrotum, he could turn that
gay man straight. Sure, that makes sense. I can
see how that would work. I think, so that's not
how being gay works. No, not at all. I think
if you put a third testicle. In a gay man, you're
just going to get a really, really gay man. You
might make them gay. I think that's about if
the surgery is successful. I know some gay guys
who have more than enough testosterone. They're
still quite gay. Oh, yeah. So transplanting testicles
brings us to our next chapter in the masculinity
grift and also brings us to something that still
plagues us and the Internet to this day. Bobby,
I'm going to show you a picture. And I want you
to tell me what you're seeing. According to the
1986 documentary titled The Goat Gland Doctor,
this is the first ever goat gland baby. Oh. Yeah.
But this, like many things I encounter while
researching for this podcast, is insane nonsense.
A man named Dr. John R. Brinkley, a practicing
physician from California. Oh, wait. Turns out
his medical degree is what I would call fraudulent.
He got it from a diploma mill, essentially. Cool.
So forget the doctor part, but that didn't stop
him from offering surgeries that would revitalize
male patients. Bobby, what do you think these
surgeries involved? Oh, probably nothing good.
He was taking goat testicles. And grafting them
into men's own glands inside of their scrotum.
So he was adding goat testicles. Yeah. Oh, my
God. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, this treatment doesn't
work. Obviously. You can't just start putting
goat balls into people and hope for the best.
Wow. Yeah. In fact, 42 patients, many of whom
were reportedly healthy when they walked into
not a Dr. Brinkley's clinic, had their death
certificates signed by him. Yeah, I believe that.
Oh, God. The documentary I mentioned is bafflingly...
That's a dumb word. Why would I even put that
in the script? The documentary I mentioned is
bafflingly... Whatever. It's ridiculously flattering
toward this dude, especially considering that
he was met with disgrace before his death, and
this documentary was made posthumously. I learned
some incredibly hilarious things about this dude,
but as I was reading, I realized that there had
to be a Behind the Bastards episode on this guy,
and I looked it up, and Robert Evans did do an
episode on Brinkley. I will be listening to that
after we record, but not to spoil anything, I
won't go into too much detail about this dude,
but I had to include Brinkley in this podcast
because there was an important through line here.
This meme got me thinking, So the meme about
men who are too weak got me thinking about how
romanticized versions of masculinity are used
to sell nonsense to dupes. I came across Pud
Galvin, the baseball player, when I was looking
into the earliest things sold to the public as
masculinizing products. I wanted to find, like,
what was the earliest, like, you know... man
making supplement or whatever, you know, whatever
market nonsense I could find. What was the earliest
one? And, uh, that one that I found from Dr.
Sicard, like from all I could read in his writings
and about who he was and stuff, I think that
he, he sincerely believed in his elixir. Um,
and he didn't, he didn't make any money off of
it. Uh, and, um, he didn't sell to anybody, but,
but some people did, or at least tried to. And
this idea, This idea of using the testicles of
other animals to revitalize the masculinity of
humans gained traction after that Bud Galvin
game. So the widespread hype regarding making
men virile again. had become a rich market for
grifters, and in fact, the goat gland bastard
suddenly wanting to play surgeon had traveled
to Chicago to be a surgeon. He had studied in
Chicago for a number of years. He failed his
class and didn't seem to care when he reportedly
told his professor, quote, I have a scheme up
my sleeve and the whole world will know about
it. Uh -oh. He sure fucking did. Now, sure, Brinkley,
essentially purchased his medical degree from
a known diploma mill called the Eclectic Medical
University of Kansas City, making his degree
not quite authentic, in my opinion. The Eclectic
Medical University of Kansas City was a known
diploma mill. were aware that you could easily
just get a diploma from them and also eclectic
medicine was not really widely recognized at
the time and really shouldn't shouldn't be you
know yeah as far as i'm concerned he wasn't an
actual medical doctor but he did have something
more important than a medical degree now what's
more important than a medical degree if you want
to sell nonsense to rubes i want you to try to
guess what what would be more important than
a medical degree Oh, I don't know. Law degree
doesn't get yourself out of trouble later. That
actually may have helped this dude out later
on in life. But no, he had KFKB, the sunshine
station in the heart of the nation. We want to
broadcast sunshine. That's right. Not a Dr. Billy
Balls had a radio station because no good Monta
Bank. had to use that word, can be without a
platform. And he really did say that Sunshine
Station thing. He bought a radio tower and KFKB
became only the fourth commercially licensed
radio station in the United States. So this dude
was probably the first radio grifter to sell
nonsense to dudes trying to be manly. It's such
a common practice now. Yeah. So he started this
radio station specifically to promote his goat
nuts treatment. And in selling this treatment,
Breakley said, quote, a man is only as old as
his glands and his glands as old as his sex glands,
which is some grade A grifter nonsense. Also,
like many grippers, fake Dr. Goatnads didn't
shy away from using his supposed Christian faith
as some sort of beacon of integrity. This isn't
me taking a shot at all Christian people or anything
like that, but it is always worth noting how
often these charlatans use Christianity to virtue
signal and to do to dupe people into thinking
that they're trustworthy. Yeah. Of course, the
treatment was not an easy sell to people, both
because of the price, which I found some sources
saying it was $700 for the treatment and others
saying $750, which is a big difference in 1920s.
But either way, that's over $11 ,000 today. It
was also a hard sell because of putting goat
balls into your sack. The treatment had not been
without controversy. Brinkley began offering
something that he said was even more affecting.
It was an even more effective revitalizing therapy.
It was a medicine known as Formula 1020. It could
treat erectile dysfunction and even make insane
people sane again. Cool. Yeah. It was a griftalizing,
fraudulizing, bullshitalizing tonic that during
Brinkley's highly publicized libel trial was
revealed to be nothing but colored water. Nice.
Yeah. So some of the problems I had with the
documentary on Brinkley was that, you know, it
was overly flattering toward him long after he
had been exposed as a fraud. They have an interview
with his wife, Minnie Brinkley, who seems to
still be kind of selling the grift with, you
know, clear bullshit about the efficacy of John
Brinkley's clinic. And she was even bragging
about how much money they had made. It's insane.
But the the most important thing. The thing that
I think is the most egregious about the documentary
is that it neglects to emphasize, well, first
off, neglects to emphasize how much of a fraud
Brinkley was, of course, but more importantly,
the goat gland baby, the one, so supposedly this
baby had been born to a man who was having trouble
conceiving, and Brinkley stuck goat nuts inside
him, and then they had this baby. Right. So this
is supposed to be, you know, proof of that this
treatment exists. And this was the first ever
goat gland baby. They completely the documentary
completely misses the fact that the kid's nickname
was Billy. It's vital information. Yeah. Now,
I don't doubt that Billy's conception was a was
damn near miraculous, but that would be in spite
of the goat scrote and not thanks to it. So after
some. regarding his reputation as not a doctor,
Brinkley invited the Kansas State Medical Review
Board to come watch him perform two of his transplant
operations, and they watched it and revoked his
license the next day. Good. Yeah. I'm just really
glad that we're past all that. And we don't have
grifters broadcasting their nonsense male treatments
to the public anymore. Yeah, never happened.
Yep. Okay, maybe I spoke too soon. But at least
radio grifters in this era sell real man -making
products like Alex Jones. I'm not sure who that
is, but he sounds pretty trustworthy. He used
to sell a supplement called Super Male Vitality
and as not to leave the ladies out. He also started
selling super female vitality. Oh, good. And
Jones knows that men need their own specific
supplement because masculinity requires its own
special enhancement, right? But don't take my
word for it. Let's hear it in Alex Jones' own
words. Oh, good. Wait. Did he say what? Hold
on. Let me try. Let's try a different clip. Huh.
But the super male vitality, I thought, would
make me extra manly. If it's the same as the
super female vitality, what's that supposed to
mean? Well, you said there were minor differences.
I bet the male one comes in blue and the female
one comes in pink. Yeah, plus just now remembering
who Alex Jones is, I know he lies a lot. So maybe
he's lying about this. Except I found the labels
for each of the supplements. And I found them
from an Australian Amazon seller. And they are,
in fact, the same thing. Alex Jones is no longer
selling this supplement, likely due to legal
financial reasons surrounding a huge lawsuit
that he lost. But according to NPR, he did try
selling supplements on Amazon long after his
website store supposedly discontinued the product,
which led to me trying to find out if this Amazon
seller was just him in disguise. I got real suspicious
about that. But I found that seller's eBay account
and they don't appear to be associated with Alex
Jones or InfoWars. They just sell a bunch of
old shit products. I couldn't find like the same
product with a different name that he's selling
or anything like that. Essentially, why Jones
was willing to admit that the two products are
the same in that moment was that he had to clearance
out his stock of supplements and the last of
the super male vitality had sold out. So he had
to admit that the super females, the same to
try to sell the rest of those two. You could
have just changed the box. No, see that's well,
there was in the bot, you know, in the bottles
and stuff, you know? So, and I'm sure like, I'm
sure there's some kind of, I know like. The supplement
market is not well regulated, but I'm sure there's
probably some problem with opening them up and
pouring them in a different bottle or whatever.
But like it was the last of their supply. I don't
even know if he had any like empty super male
vitality bottles around or whatever. I don't
know. Anyway, it's still there is one point in
his show, too. I had to listen to a few clips.
Yeah, but he does say like. You know, they're
the same. It's the same product. It's, you know,
just women, you know, they like the pink and,
you know, they like the different colors or whatever.
Sure. We want it to be pretty. Yeah, no, it was
a con is what it was. They put the same thing
in two different bottles. I don't know. Anyway,
super male vitality is gone. Bobby, it cannot
hurt us anymore. Good. Now, I should specify
that there's no verifiable. evidence that super
male vitality was hurting anyone and the south
francisco chronicle lab tested super male vitality
and found it basically to just be ineffective
at least for the substances that they test for
super male vitality um it's about as effective
as goat goat grafts aforementioned Colored water.
Listening to my favorite podcast of all time,
Knowledge Fight, which has over 1 ,100 episodes,
all of which are making fun of and analyzing
claims from Alex Jones. It comes up sometimes
that Jones would go kind of batshit after taking
some of his supplements on his show, which led
to me trying to find out if there were any undeclared
substances in super male vitality. Specifically,
there were two substances I was curious about
specifically, and there wasn't actually anything
found by the FBI. or anywhere else. There was
a paper claiming to have detected the supplement
to be contaminated with lead, but I found that
claim to be somewhat dubious and at least looking
into Labdor, a company that tests various products
for drug and chemical contaminants, found that
super male vitality and super female vitality
had heavy metal levels that were below safe levels
determined by California's Prop 65. So not really.
any serious lead contaminants that was found.
Labdor also noted that the daily dose of 1 .25
mils of the supplement wasn't even enough volume
to contain biologically significant levels of
the listed ingredients. Oh my god. What I did
find, though, is that there were a lot of male
supplements, male vitality supplements, not specifically
sold by Alex Jones, that did contain one or two
specific undeclared drug ingredients, namely
sildenafil and tidalafil, the active ingredients
in the erectile dysfunction drugs Viagra and
Cialis. Unfortunately, knowing how dude brains
work, this would be a selling point for these
products. Yeah. So. I also know it wouldn't do
much good to emphasize the risks being taken
when you take medications that weren't prescribed
to you, so I will read something that is more
likely to get their attention. This is a quote
from the Annals of Indian Psychiatry. Quote,
one of the most concerning psychological effects
of sildenafil is the potential for dependency,
particularly when the drug is used recreationally,
or without medical necessity. Men who use sildenafil
to enhance sexual performance may begin to feel
that they cannot perform sexually without the
aid of the drug, leading to psychological reliance.
Over time, sildenafil may come to be viewed as
an essential part of sexual encounters, regardless
of whether ED is present. This psychological
dependence can take various forms. For some individuals,
the anxiety of not achieving the same level of
sexual performance without the sildenafil can
become overwhelming. Men may feel insecure about
their sexual abilities, believing that they are
only capable of satisfying their partner when
using the drug. This can lead to a cycle of anxiety
and reliance where the individual feels increasing
pressure. to continue using sildenafil to meet
sexual expectations. Moreover, this over -reliance
can lead to an exacerbation of performance anxiety.
When individuals become conditioned to rely on
sildenafil for sexual performance, they may struggle
with erectile dysfunction in its absence, even
if they initially had no issues. Interesting.
Yeah. So if you want to risk not being able to
get boners again, Yeah. Go ahead. Take those
supplements. Um, I figured that that's more likely
to get dude's attention than, uh, than, you know,
the fact that it's dangerous to take those medications
if you weren't prescribed them. Well, you know,
you get your priorities, right? Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately
I, I, it's on. But that's probably how dude brains
are going to work. Yeah. So, well, a lot of masculinizing
products or products sold as male enhancement
contains sildenafil and tidalafil. Luckily, super
male vitality did not. What is more likely, which
is likely more dangerous, is Alex Jones selling
fake coronavirus treatments to people, to his
listeners. And he had received a cease and desist
from the New York attorney general for that.
Yeah. Yeah, during the pandemic, coronavirus
treatments briefly overshadowed male enhancement
in the bullshit supplement market. But you know
what, Bobby? I don't fall for this nonsense.
Good. I stick with natural masculinizing tactics.
When it comes to that, there's only one king.
The liver king. Okay. Turns out Robert did an
episode on this guy, too. And I'm extra excited
to listen to that episode because a friend of
our podcast is on that episode. Oh, yeah? Yeah.
Our buddy Dr. Kaveh Hoda is on that one. Nice.
Yeah. For listeners, if you want to hear your
humble host, me, as a guest on Kaveh's podcast,
it's episode 297 of The House of Pod. I'm on
there along with hepatologist Dr. Elliot Tapper.
So it was me and two hepatologists. Yeah. one
of these things is not like the others. One of
these things doesn't belong. No, I had a lot
of fun being on this show. But for the record,
I think that being a hepatologist makes Kaveh
and Dr. Tapper true liver kings, unlike our self
-proclaimed liver king, Brian Johnson. So Johnson
believes... Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson. Yeah.
We worked with Brian. Yeah, that's right. Shit,
we worked with Brian. Just getting on the show.
You know, real quick, what's a, what's a, what's
a, a hepatologist, herpetologist? Hepatologist.
Yeah, liver doctor. Okay. Yeah. Oh, specifically
the liver? Yeah. I mean, a gastro, like, Kavi's
a gastroenterologist and he's a hepatologist,
like, specializes in the liver. Gotcha. So, Brian
Johnson. That's right, our old co -worker. Johnson
believes that men are going through depression
because they don't have enough manly figures
telling them that they need to be manlier and
how to be manlier. Sure. Okay. I think he might
have something backwards there, but whatever.
Something I want to be forthright with is that
a lot of grifts are sold based on what sounds
right. It sounds right that men are weaker today
because it fits the stereotypes of like kids
these days. You know, it sounds right that vaccines
cause autism because kids are vaccinated right
around the time that diagnoses usually happen.
The liver king, Brian Johnson, was selling an
idea that sounded right about manliness. He is
a massively muscular guy with a huge beard. So
he embodies the classic idea of what masculinity
supposedly is. And his message is to follow what
he calls a primal lifestyle. You see, it sounds
right that we should eat more like our ancestors
because their diet must be how our bodies evolved
to survive. It sounds right and it's a simple
idea, so it's easy to sell. Right. Notice I have
not called what he does a grift. I'm just saying
he's selling an idea that sounds right. But,
Bobby, manliness doesn't come from foraging berries
or eating bugs. So if that's what you were thinking
with a primal lifestyle, no, it comes from eating
nothing but meat. Raw meat. Because salads don't
sound manly. And cooking meat destroys all those
delicious nutrients that made our ancestors so
masculine, like E. coli and parasitic worms.
You see, it sounds right that we should eat like
our primal ancestors, which is probably why Alex
Jones used to sell bone broth. And it sounds
right. that the way to eat primally is to tear
into the meat without cooking it. It sounds right,
and more importantly, it sounds like an easy
answer. Building muscle requires work. Getting
large and muscular requires work. But effort
is not always an appealing answer. There needs
to be a magic fix, like eating raw meat or taking
a masculinizing supplement. At least Johnson
isn't selling us some bottle of nonsense to take,
right? Introducing King. King is an integral
part of an advanced athletic training and nutrition
regimen that supports testicular function, hormone
health, strength, and libido. King combines nature's
most nutrient -dense superfoods to support manhood,
virility, and the fittest version of you. Bobby,
are you ready to hear what these superfoods are?
Yeah, what are they? Yeah, all right. Now, usually
when I hear superfoods, you know, they're...
what like the beef the beet market is like yeah
it's slow you know so they need to sell more
beets or like suddenly blueberries have a special
antioxidant or whatever you know that's usually
what i think of when i think of superfoods no
no no that's not manly these superfoods are beef
heart bone marrow liver and nuts beef testicles
Always with the testicles with these guys. Well,
it's because balls make men manly, and it sounds
right that eating balls must make men manlier.
Well, you are what you eat, right? That's right.
So if you want to be a great big testicle, I
love how he just keeps swinging back the testicles.
And who could argue with the results? The liver
king is huge, possibly due to his diet of raw
meat and steroids. That's right. Nothing but
raw meat and steroids. Yeah, it looks like in
2022, Johnson admitted that he had been using
steroids. No. This led to some lawsuits accusing
Johnson of being misleading. He is super manly,
though. He's still super manly, though, Bobby.
In fact, he's going to fight Joe Rogan. Yeah.
Liver King Brian Johnson, with no martial arts
training whatsoever, challenged Brazilian jiu
-jitsu black belt Joe Rogan to a one -on -one
match. Hold on. When's this going to be on? We've
got to do this. We could do a live recording
for the podcast. I will say, the Liver King's
huge. Brian Johnson is huge. He's a big, muscular
guy. But Joe Rogan is a... trained martial artists
so i my money's on rogan oh yeah being big doesn't
mean anything yeah yeah it's true you're a better
target it's true i watched when i was in china
i watched a kung a match between a kung fu guy
and a sumo wrestler and the kung fu guy won yeah
um sumo wrestler tapped out when the kung fu
guy was punching him in the head yeah um yeah
i think a kung fu guy was punching me in the
head i'd tap out too oh yeah yeah um but uh so
um Liver King, he documented his travels to meet
up with Rogan. This led all the way up to Johnson
being arrested because Joe Rogan was not aware
of this fight. The two men do not know each other.
The police caught wind of Johnson wanting to
fight. discovered that johnson was traveling
to rogan's hometown and the cops asked rogan
if he was in on this rogan essentially said i
don't fucking know that dude and agreed to press
charges so he was just gonna walk up to his door
and knock and like beat the shit out of him in
the doorway i thought you were gonna announce
like a pay -per -view match or something well
joe rogan was not engaging with them um so essentially
yeah essentially what what had happened was that
i i think that rogan touched on uh The fact that
Brian Johnson had been using steroids. I think
Joe Rogan mentioned that in his podcast. And
Johnson kind of blames Rogan for the backlash
that he received for doing it. I mean, I kind
of blame Johnson's own behavior. A little bit,
yeah. But he called him out on it. Yeah. It's
clearly Joe Rogan's fault. Yeah, right. And so
Johnson was charged with terroristic threat.
On November 12th last year, the charges were
dropped, and 13 days later, Johnson posted another
rant similar to those that led to him being charged
in the first place. Oh, my God. Johnson still
wants to fight Rogan and said that his previous
call -outs were not a threat, but a challenge
to a professional fight, adding an eyebrow -raising
phrase, you can't run forever. Eventually, you'll
have to say something. You can't run forever
thing. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah. Now, there
are signs of toxic masculinity like this in a
lot of places. But that doesn't mean that there's
anything wrong with wanting to be manly or wanting
to embody some of the things that have been classically
considered manly. Big muscles, hardworking, things
like that. There's nothing wrong with any of
that. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with any of
that. But anyone seeking ways to be stronger
or more masculine should keep in mind that as
men, feeling inadequate leads us vulnerable to
grifters. A lot of times unrealistic standards
of masculinity are put on display for the sake
of playing us all for chumps. And a lot of what
we think make us more manly are based on fiction
and fantasy. A lot of times chasing after supposedly
manly attributes can lead in the opposite direction
of the desired effects. Being tough about how
little sleep you get can make you weaker both
mentally and physically. Buying ineffective male
supplements. makes you weaker financially with
nothing to show for it. Taking sexual enhancement
products can lead to psychological dependence.
Eating raw meat exposes you to the risk of diseases
that can rob you of your energy and even your
life. I think one of the most important lessons
to learn here is that the most tremendously demonstrating
masculinizing effect was that of a placebo, which
I believe suggests that most of us have a lot
more energy and strength inside than we realize.
We don't need bullshit supplements or to eat
raw meat or inject ourselves with testicles to
find out. So, Bobby, what do you think? I think
you shouldn't buy stuff from the internet. Just
anything? Pretty much, yeah. Do your research.
Just give up on it. Just go to the grocery store.
It's probably fine. It's on a shelf. It's been
approved. Yeah, my thing is that if it sounds...
like a magic bullet or if it sounds like an easy
fix yeah or if it sounds like you know why haven't
i heard of this before it's probably because
it's bullshit yeah it's too good to be true yeah
yeah it's probably bullshit don't i i don't think
that there's any masculinizing supplements out
there i don't doubt that people believe that
they've received uh benefits from some of these
things but just like Earlier, you know, the guy
injecting himself with testicles, he thought
that that was really working and he was able
to lift more and he peed further and stuff, you
know. And I think that I think a lot of, you
know, and most people who look into the history
of that and every scientist who looked into the
efficacy of injecting testicles and even finding
testosterone in testicles, anybody who looked
into that found. that it was most likely to be
a placebo effect. And so I don't doubt that there
are people who think that they've gotten a lot
out of some of these supplements and, and in
healthcare, a lot of times what we say is like,
if it seems to be working for somebody, don't
take that from them. Right. But I would also
recommend not relying on these things. If you
haven't tried anything, just. it's it talk to
a doctor you know if it's a serious issue don't
don't buy these dumb man supplements and and
be suspicious of anything telling you how to
be manly you know i think the best way to be
manly is just be happy with who you are you know
um if you want to be more masculine you know
do some masculine things and healthy masculine
things, you know, lift some weights, but not
too much. Go lift some weights. Yeah. Yeah. Don't
give yourself a hernia. Don't tear a muscle.
Yeah. Anyway, thank you all so much for listening.
Goodbye, everybody. Bye.