Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan (fka All Gas No Brakes)

the bigfoot all gas no brakes is fucking great
can AGNB get a thread already

― Four Seasons Total Manscaping (forksclovetofu), Monday, November 16, 2020 2:35 AM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUbod5t_2oM

Vice piece on yr boi!

that was very entertaining and enlightening - but holy crap wtf with the mushroom overdosing shit

we have shrooms to thank

he's great, his coverage of the mpls protests was the best i've seen

I hope Vice took copious notes from him on how to do this kind of thing well lol

lmaoooo "I'm in the big apple to do big business"

I mean I'm sure at some point he's / they're gonna slip up and do a problematic but for now this is an excellent use of white privilege imho

This blows:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMNnFMOsHvg/

What the hell? The name is worthless without him.

that's dumb as hell

Huh? So the only part of the AGNB team that remains is ... the RV? I guess no biggie, he just needs a new name and can literally do the exact same man with a mic thing on his own.

Pretty much. I have no idea what the production company was thinking.

He should walk across America. I had an old National Geographic where a guy did that in the ‘70s, opportunities are even greater now.

(also... Forrest Gump, but slower)

Forrest Gump via Gerry.

For a second I thought you meant the RV can do it on its own.

Just a mic, an RV, a little duct tape and voilà!

xps

Self-driving RV with megaphone on top would be rad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_Walk_Across_America.jpg

I've read this book so many times, and the companion, The Walk West, although the latter is complicated by the author's getting Jesus, thanks (no thanks) to his girlfriend/wife. Really charming and illuminating slice of American life imo.

Bah.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/43/A_Walk_Across_America.jpg/220px-A_Walk_Across_America.jpg

wtf this is like John Wilson saying he's not doing the next season of How To

wow, this is fucked

This company is just a bunch of normie meme accounts plus All Gas No Breaks.

https://www.papermag.com/doing-things-media-memes-2647643052.html

Looking forward to Always Forwards Never Backwards or whatever

hes back

https://digg.com/video/the-all-gas-no-brakes-guy-interviews-miami-spring-breakers-and-things-get-a-little-uncomfortable

we're all gonna die

Correction: we're all dead already, and that video is proof.

watching that weirdly felt like an eternity.

Further proof that we are all dead.

Nah, we're just a bunch of aging counter-normies.

(A good thing imo.)

spring break is eternal, you could go back to 1981, 1991, 2001, 2011 and get the exact same type of dipshits doing the same stupid shit

Possibly even worse tbh.

I know it feels like it, but the pandemic isn't eternal

also there probably weren't straight frat dudes publicly advocating ass-eating parties in 1981

he played that bigdog bs perfectly

Not sure I get the whole 'white boy summer' thing.

I mean more the attitude, drunk entitled destructive assholes, they never change

pom I could provide lengthy annotations but it’s still an almost entirely content-free meme even with them

Now I'm even more curious.

Well that was horrifying.

Finally watching the Spring Break video and I hate it.

It's great but I hate it.

incredible stuff here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGWNX1GNzJo

the guys who made off with AGNB wanted him to do LESS political stuff, what astonishing fools

yeah like “hey can u be more of the LIVE FROM SPRING BREAK MIAMI guy and less PROUD BOYS OHIO guy? we’ll get more monster energy ad dollars”

I don't know the guy's process, but just letting people talk is such a good strategy. "You got a shotgun in your car, you got a pistol on your hip, you got a Taser on the other side, you around this bitch looking like Batman, and you scared?! If you scared, then quit!" OTM.

with just a little tightening he could have gotten this down to 9:29

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROqjR8b_HvQ

Whip-its without having to actually steal cans of whipped cream seems wrong.

That 19-y/o at the end rules

I love the way he just stands aside and lets people talk, and lets them keep talking. So simple and yet almost no one does this.

That animation is an amazing touch.

mushroom guy is good peoples

The questions he does ask are spot on. How would you feel if someone tried to tell you that you gave a fuck?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMswepvHBAA

gonna need a stiff drink for this one

It's mercifully short and the far-right cranks he dredged up aren't as overt in their racism as I expected. Also, you need to hear the TRUTH about the Clinton-backed MURDER of Kobe Bryant.

boy those El Salvadorans are great workers, therefore there is no racism

The flag dude in the photo seems to have undergone some traumatic financial ruin (not of his own making, naturally), and that seems to be a pretty common thread among these people.

shrieked like a banshee at "fish tacos!"

The Lynchian drones underneath select speakers are an underrated element

I really love the developing "Channel 5" aesthetic with the little dedicated intro + still freely folding in/repurposing mainstream news as appropriate.

As usual the best moments are when things veer outside of the point - bill joiner of shady canyon, fish tacos are white food, kobe bryant was assassinated by the clintons etc

peaks at the 13 second mark though

Kevin Smith with dreads is quite the mashup

'what's the best way to make a racist feel uncomfortable?'

'fuck em up'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfu08ULFK88

big things poppin

Trust The Plan pic.twitter.com/yy3b1ag1Mm

— TrueAnon Pod (@TrueAnonPod) May 31, 2021

"...every day, a hundred bucks. I love them."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wH2YySpoXE

An excruciating watch. Ooft.

Return of the twins had me cackling. Both they and the PUAs have such a weird 8th grade understanding of sexuality. “Most make out sessions”? What?

there's no way that guy ain't a Sacha Baron Cohen character

I know the twins doc was released first, but it can't be a coincidence they show up here. maybe they were discovered here and the doc was a follow-up?

they're channel 5 ip, so they'll just be rolled out whenever they think its funny to have them around

This video defeated me, too much cringe to finish it even tho it's only like 12 min.

the 'singing' just took it completely next level

the 'poem'

i feel so bad for those guys, also i hate them

The middle-school focus on making out would be sweet if it weren't for almost everything else about them.

What, do you guys not like making out?

well I've done it 5000 times so

with that one girl from niagara falls, you wouldnt know her

she couldn't resist my peacocking

stanli had this look in his eyes like he’s terrified to be in his own body

he has definitely had tens of makeouts

yeah I worry about him

big ups to AC's dilbert-meets-carrot-top swag

These are great but I always leave the tab open for days before I can bring myself to watch a new one

yeah head PUA dude is creepy & obviously a grifter but he's almost got that Wiseau vibe to him, he acts like such a space alien, I almost can see why people are drawn to him. the other dudes I almost felt a little bad for. they seem broken and hollowed out.

There’s a long interview with him on the Yeah But Still podcast, talking about the demise of AGNB, an upcoming documentary, his impressions of CHAZ, plans to take adrenochrome with Brace Belden, etc. Kind of always on the verge of thinking he’s completely high on his own supply and his concept of what he’s doing is a lot more revolutionary than the actual product, but it’s an entertaining listen. (Tbh I have that general feeling about basically every YouTube personality.) I did have to laugh hearing him say that Seattle became gentrified in 2014.

Tbf, he does seem high a _lot_

permanently imo

He's also 24.

there's def nothing revolutionary about what he's doing, the style of video is pretty trad at this point, goes back to what the daily show field reports, triumph the insult comic dog segments... maybe even earlier, could just be my limited memory. the PUA one didn't add anything to the story of that culture, for instance. his videos are entertaining tho & i enjoy watching them

idk there's a bit of a difference in how Andrew himself doesn't ever make himself a focal point and he doesn't ask a lot of gotcha questions - I guess it gets people to trust him. plus he seems to film a lot of places that are legitimately seedy, not just big media stuff

he’s on Desus & Mero this Sunday :D

yeah tonally it's not much like daily show/triumph

i hope the D+M spot signals the capital riot tapes coming out

Slightly different styles of course, but for me there are some strong similarities with a lot of what Louis Theroux has done over the years. They're both particularly good at giving their subjects space.

Harmony Theroux

Iirc Andrew has specifically cited Louis Theroux. Part of the proud tradition of idiots seeing a guy with a microphone, thinking *they're* the idiot, then trying to set them straight, thus revealing surprising new depths to their idiocy. Or, in the case of All Gas/Channel Five, sometimes the opposite, like the guy in the LA punk one who, between shots of people doing whippets and passing out, starts espousing his opinions on gentrification.

I thought this was pretty funny for not being what they hoped:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7OWrH7o4WA

That's cute. Andrew seems way more together when he's not holding back so much to leave space for his interviewees.

i hope that wasn't a one off

he’s got such great instincts. he’s a genius i think.

"How does someone avoid getting cancelled?"
"Don't use the N word."

xxp desus said on instagram ‘did a segment with andrew callaghan. gonna do a lot more’

butthole sun, won't you come...

I think this might be the greatest clip of @SamSeder ever...@majorityfm pic.twitter.com/BSCred1h2y

— Aslan (@LordAslanThe2nd) July 12, 2021

It was only a matter of time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYKOLwt8pwo

Honestly, this is just depressing.

By "depressing" I think you meant "illuminating" and "convincing." #freethechildren #princewasmurderedalongwiththesingerfromlinkinpark

fucking hell what a bummer of a video.
q trumper prince/nipsey truthers, I mean...

chet hanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy47RTZRy9w

andrew's reactions to the freestyle..... dying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9v6q5YzbGA

i couldn't muster a single laugh during that one, just too depressing

i liked "i have so much on my mind! aaaaa!"

I chuckled when someone asked if he was a fan of the Sixers and he immediately says "the January 6-ers." Don't know if any of these are supposed to be funny, though.

I don't watch these for laughs, but I laughed a lot at the Chet Hanks callback

I'm just pretty much against Tom Hanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe4Yf-0Wm4U

the raps are better this week

His first “good not great” ep. Still, he could keep churning these out weekly and I would eat every last grain.

Love the airtime he gave that Rowan kid at the end + the “you have value” comments to mr. doesn’t-eat-breakfast. My favourite moments of his videos are the small moments of empathy creates in the middle of the craziness.

Call me ol’ fashioned, but definitely had some “oh god stop all hip-hop look at how it’s rotting these kids” thoughts watching this…..

The kid at the end had some decent flow but needs to find a better friend group/ general mileu. The two people in this who actually came across as decent was Zilla (who in the performance clip they played just made me think "damn I'm old and out of touch, if this is what The Kids are into..."), he just seemed polite but also the fuck am I doing here? That brings up another point, was he literally the only Black person on camera? Then that older guy that made cupboards or whatever, just owned that young performativly "edgy" kid tried to interview him ShOcKiNgLy, so you seeem to have some obsession with my asshole particularly? Yeah, I've spent time in federal prison... watch that kid shrink down

OTM re: cabinet guy. The part with his kid was very sweet too.

I don’t know how to feel about the whiteness of the event except secondhand embarrassment. I don’t know why I feel that way though, someone enlighten me.

Would love to see a Channel 5 LDS-event video.

it's utah

I just saw the reparations one, which is outside of their usual wheelhouse (but still entertaining):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65uuGA2xGwg

Andrew's whole business model: 1. Find the people who look and act like GTA 5 characters. 2. Ask them what's on their mind. 3. Profit.

Didn't expect a Lance Bangs appearance, and didn't expect to hear Slint (if just for a second)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Xse0E_SzA

I'll keep watching these videos, but the joke/WTF-moment density isn't what it used to be IMO.

I loved Phish Lot, plenty of wtf for me

omfg

it's true that the nitrous mafia hates phish

antivaxxers in the lot bummed me out but they seem to hate phish for it too so they can fuck off of this planet!

I thought this one was pretty good, had some funny moments. Curious that of all his videos this is the first one iirc where lots of people seem to know who he is.

The Lance Bangs appearance was the first time I felt second-hand embarrassment against Andrew. The questions about Kurt Cobain and Dave Growl just made me cringe for Lance Bang's sake, having to respond to someone who was implicitly conflating Cobain with music royalty/authority.

All up, still love it though. My favourite Channel 5 highlight is how much middle aged suburban men like to light it up

I thought that Cobain thing was funny because he followed it up with the Dave Grohl thing, implicitly making fun of Dave Grohl.

I didn't pick it up that way but eh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY07XkagdnQ

Fave comment: "Andrew finally interviewed someone who can actually rap and offers him the stage. Perhaps this was the Channel 5 plan all along."

it does feel a bit snake eats its own tail for him to start producing white rappers

Leaving the Q Shaman prison interview for someone with a stronger stomach.

kinda feel the same

it was somewhat interesting, frustrating because i feel like if he'd found the right people far earlier he could maybe, maybe have ended up a left winger. all the drugs probably didn't help. andrew is good at pointing out that some of the things he speaks about are real, but most of it is insane

I watched like 15 secs of this and there's some sort of relationship to whiteness that has really bloomed on this show that seems really strange to me that I haven't really paid enough attention to to care to explain, but even stranger is the fandom around it of people needing to have a journalist to cheer on, or to recognize that they're following real journalism, "finally a real journalist" "this is true american journalism" not a big deal but it prompts a xi jingpingy response from me

Forget it Bongo, it's stan town.

Shaman clip is unwatchable/unlistenable. While it is kind of fun to just flit around and click on it at random spots just to hear a few out of context snips of his babble, the interview ain't exactly moving any mountains.

I thought it was a good video all up, albeit with a chunk of dead air. I don’t really put “moving mountains” as my criteria for what makes good media. Throwing a spotlight on the psychology of a mainstream conspiracy theorist does tick my criteria tho.

Don’t know whether I like the Callaghan method (let crazy people just talk) or Theroux method (let crazy people just talk but then present their craziness to their face after they are relatively comfortable) more.

moving mountains was just me making a Shaman joke.

Lol. Bummed Andrew didn’t let him keep talking about opening up a church when he was out of jail too.

My favourite part was when he said proof of the millennia old baby eating conspiracy is that john podesta looks like the linkin park singer, barabara bush looks like aleister crowley and angela merkel looks like hitler.

I couldn't watch all of it either but I was intrigued enough to click around a bit. My takeaway from it is that maybe some people are just predisposed to conspiracy brain and that America does an awful lot to push those sorts of people over the edge. The fact that Trump was able to win over these people - despite them generally hating Republican politicians as well - is the real frustrating part.

andrew's stuff is generally funny but treats its subjects with a degree of humanity and this asshole is not funny and deserves no such respect

i take it you still haven't watched it?

At one point he mutes himself because he can’t stop cracking up

The bit I watched, it was so batshit I thought it would have been funny if he just "conducted" the interview/listened to the rant while he was going about his regular business: walking down the street, eating at McDonald's, riding the bus, watching TV ...

i haven't watched it, now

*no

Finally starting this, he's a sentient Joe Rogan episode

In every way, starting with health and wellness woo into tripping balls to meet god and finally into being a fascist simp

Not as cringy as I expected, saved by not really having the Shaman on screen

a fun one

gadaba!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy9x09iCATA

Holy shit, when they're interviewing the twins at the same time.

That ep is funny enough that I paused it 1/3rd of the way through, because I want to give it my full attention. May even start it over again from the beginning.

Some of this felt mean spirited in a way he usually isn't, the kid at 8:39 specifically seems like an awkward person going about his day, idk.

Do like how it pivots from the freak show of the first half into more seriouish interactions with the Memphis rap artist

wkiw guy at 23:17

what really? i think we're all pulling for Nate Dogg. his gap year is gonna be nuts

Nate Dogg was the best. He was chill.

I watched this ep with my wife, and at the end she still had no idea what the focus of the convention even was. It was like a peek at a parallel dimension. Hilariously, when it was over, she went up to our teens and asked if they had ever heard of "Asspizza." They looked at her like she was insane. A lot of the people in the clip, they reminded of the protagonist of "Red Rocket," boasting of having, like, 1000 followers on Porn Hub or whatever, like a) that means anything to 99.9% of people or b) like that means anything at all, period.

So much was very much like: "See these shoes? I designed these butt-ugly shoes when I was 19. Now I'm 20 and I'm *still* wearing them. It's not about the clout, it's about fashion, the design, keeping it real shoes with faces on them, yo. Hit me up on Instagram, I'll get you a mad discount!"

I liked when he asked Asspizza if he was mad when people ripped him off, and he shrugs and just says "I mean, I'm an *influencer* ... "

I have no idea what this whole thing was about. Parallel dimension OTM.

i was gonna get a t-shirt from the merch drop but i am not paying 40 bucks for a t-shirt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eifzHd_f0l8

4 minutes in. skeptical seeing the title and run time, but as always, this is great.

With all the love in the world for these characters

hoff twins = stunted at sugar-high 12yo but good
Chet = stunted at moody 14yo, but not good

it took me a whole Andrew Callaghan to realise the attraction of reality TV. Going to go watch the Kardashians with my wife tonight cause this is GREAT

my reaction watching most of these vids has always been "damn this is pretty predatory and/or racist" and then I turn it off

Can understand predatory (isn't that sadly essential to journalism?), but what makes you find it and/or racist?

yeah that's a weird call

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKcJrBRVZn4

Teaser: early in the video (which I've barely watched so far) Andrew says once his passport arrives in the mail he wants to go to Ukraine.

I'm about halfway through and I think this one is one of his better ones. Not necessarily funny, more ... sad. Def paints a picture of this particular fucked up time and place.

yeah, i liked it a lot - less lurid or exploitative and frankly also less reactionary edgelordy

"i called him sperming effingher, because his name is sherman effingher"

Finally finished it. It's all just so sad, these forgotten/forgettable people and dropouts from society alike, all primed for manipulation and exploitation. Assuming certain parties, both domestic and international, are indeed pumping them full of misinformation, they're simultaneously fully receptive but also ill-prepared to do much with that information beyond acting out. They're not organized, they're not strategic, they're just a mish-mash of conspiracy theorists, religious fundamentalists, ostensible libertarians, fascists and other fringes being agitated and pointed in different directions, willy-nilly. I don't know what lesson Russia (for example) learned from 2016, that this loosely affiliated block can be controlled or that control is less productive an objective than just leaving them perpetually out of control, roving agents of chaos. Sometimes they might shift the results of an election. Other times they might just drive around the beltway like jackasses.

Andrew says once his passport arrives in the mail he wants to go to Ukraine.

This sounds like a terrible idea.

like as per sean's characterization of some of his content as lurid and exploitative....dropping himself into a war zone that, as far as I know, he has zero cultural context for??

I dunno, I doubt it will actually happen, but given his greatest talent seems to be just listening it could possibly work out. Just providing another platform for people to be heard. Of course, war correspondents are very different from local news. Maybe Andrew set himself apart by interviewing people outside burning convenience stores in Minneapolis, mocking local news crews for covering from a safe distance, but that kind of access is a war correspondent's bread and butter. They're made of tougher stuff. They're not wearing helmets for decoration. So if he did go I assume he would just stick to man on the street interviews, away from the shooting.

channel 5's interview technique will work fine in Ukraine - "just talking to people," hearing them out, giving space to characters

but their lack of context means whatever edit they put together is likely to be credulous and/or cynical, and to fetishize whatever they find. best case scenario, they do enough homework to represent different perspectives and we get a sense of a variety of POVs that we don't often see. but weirdo-seeking american kids videotaping random ukrainians doesn't seem like it's going to transmit many insights.

I don't know, with a name like Andrew Callaghan I assume he at least has some Ukrainian roots.

Yeah, it's the edit I worry about - I think Channel 5 often manages to tread this very fine line, where you get to see the ridiculousness and danger and humanity of a situation at the same time, and I think that's down to understanding the cultural context. I'm sure something like that could be done in Ukraine right now, but almost certainly only by an ukranian reporter.

The video of his I've seen that has the least wackiness is the BLM one, which I found well made and moving; but also, again, not something I think someone who didn't have an insider's view of the US could pull off.

xpost ok that's possible! No idea whether he has family there or something, that would def change things.

just in case, I was clearly joking.

lol d'oh

i dunno. i couldn't get 10 minutes into that video, it seemed a little too snide even though i don't like the subjects.

yep he went

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBah5HNknLM

could have been a lot worse, but indeed

weirdo-seeking american kids videotaping random ukrainians doesn't seem like it's going to transmit many insights.

I guess if it sews doubts in a few people who have been Foxpilled it's good?

pretty insubstantial and unnecessary

can you recommend some more substantial videos providing the same perspective?

they're definitely not "weirdo-seeking" in this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AmOqQOOPn8

not so sure about the pacing/editing, but from a content standpoint this was one of his best: really great job presenting the freakish as well as human sides of both the Christian protesters and the satanists

was wondering when a rapper would show up, saved it for the end

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-qj2rqgChM

i will be thinking about the split second shot of the fella getting his cowboy boots polished forever

This one has layers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPnQbKgotOw

Andrew Callaghan, the 25-year-old gonzo journalist who has grown to fame with his Channel 5 YouTube documentaries, is taking his next project to HBO. The company has acquired his documentary about the Jan. 6 insurrection, Variety can exclusively reveal.

The documentary will follow Callaghan’s “wild RV journey through America in the months leading up to the January 6 Capitol Riot.” Callaghan directs and serves as an executive producer, alongside A24. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, of the comedy duo Tim & Eric, also executive produce. The doc is currently untitled and does not yet have a release date.

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/andrew-callaghan-channel-5-documentary-hbo-1235370985/

The guy is also going on tour, with a movie screening and ... who the hell knows.

https://channel5.news/pages/c5livetour

Damn, the Portland date is already sold out

I'd missed this, but here he's pretty funny and perceptive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhwijXZoncM

I looked up what the meme account conglomerate that jacked Channel 5 was doing... they got a $20mn funding round this spring (before interest rate hikes). Completely insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-YHmIogDhc

Depressing

Saw him flying under the radar at a metal show in Oakland the other night. Can only assume this means there's a Folsom St Fair episode in the pipeline.

lmao at that part in the Hot Ones video where he’s explaining a selfie he took with Anthony Wiener.

“Yeah, I was in Target buying some White Claws for my aunt and I see Carlos Danger in there with some Pit Vipers on”

it's been awhile since he's done somewhat more benign weirdos so these urine drinking weirdos are surely more welcome than alex jones

I felt the same way. Laughed hard several times.

"Let your cock and your balls fully exist" is good advice at least. No Schrödinger's dicks here.

Finally, one that is just funny and not depressing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLbkoJpLkIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH_rX9S6sU8

I'm in. "Fear and Loathing in Washington, DC."

'we're divided by forces that profit from our division' - ohhh Andrewpaws

Andrew Callaghan on CNN: "Even CNN competes for views by running constant 24hr news cycles based upon fear, division, outrage & panic, probably like to sell ads."

Don Lemon: "I don't agree with what you're saying." pic.twitter.com/JpZoxeeTD4

— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) December 19, 2022

Andrew otm

anyone else watch the Hemingway lookalike contest video? some good stuff, and the choice of cohost entertained me

I’m wondering if Brace will appear in the HBO thing

even CNN lol

Brace is a good teamup for him

Movie is all from 2020 I think? Probably predates their working together. Anyway can't wait to see it.

er, up to early 2021 i guess

this looks like it's gonna be real depressing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdk3a9pI_jA

On the other hand, all the pedophiles will be locked up, and the Rothschilds will be forced to flee to Epstein Island in their submarines to drink their emergency stores of child blood, and they will be caught and prosecuted by the military, so that's a good thing. Unless you are pro-pedophile/Rothschild.

Wow, that was hard to watch, especially the part where the kid says he has zero friends. I immediately thought of Louis Theroux's series on Westboro Baptist ("You're gonna eat your babies!!"), and coincidentally, I came across this recent conversation between Theroux and Andrew Callaghan:
https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/andrew-callaghan-and-louis-theroux-on-exposing-americas-extremes

good interview. thanks for posting it

Good interview. Callaghan is like a gonzo journalist savant.

well, that was a lot to digest!

—and I was like, if you want to watch this, you have to watch Joker Gang and Gum Gang smoke weed out of a fish’s ass before you get to the meat, because that’s America, too.

otm

it was pretty good - i liked the narrative tone the film struck, its thesis and POV

on a craft-level it wasn't anything special though; jan 6 ended up feeling anti-climactic; the rhythm of the thing felt off

weird seeing andrew in a relatively nicely fitting suit at the end

i like andrew callaghan and even just a year or two ago i would have been all over This Place Rules. but i couldn't make it more than 20, 25 minutes in. i'm so exhausted with these really horrible people. i'm no longer fascinated by how they can possibly be so wrong. it is very depressing to watch. they seem beyond all help, and when i watch, i feel like i'm in that place, too

karl are you american?
i'm canadian and it makes sense to me that this stuff would 'taste' different to people for whom these issues feel even more tactile/close

yes, american, and for sure, i think my own current repulsion has a lot to do with personal experience and seeing how the conspiracies can destroy trust in relationships. but maybe it feels more evident or visibly present here because americans are louder and more open about their conspiratorial beliefs? maybe that's a false premise. i really don't know, i've spent almost all of my life in the united states and can't really compare firsthand. but it seems like people around the world share a belief in conspiracies. for example,

https://i.imgur.com/PJzdE41.png

i think there's a common human desire to seek explanations for things we don't understand. it might be comforting to a lot of people, in some ways, to believe that a secret group is pulling the strings.

i really struggle with the whole topic. in a sense i think i grew up with the stuff (pentecostal church where lots of people would speak in tongues and then others would "interpret" what was said to the congregation, which in practice meant that random people would deliver these really loud "messages from god" that were clearly just being made up on the spot, while all the adults in the room shouted amen), but i think my experience is pretty common. i struggle because i feel like i've learned absolutely nothing, somehow, and have no insight or advice or anything useful to say. i still don't know if it's everywhere and everyone deals with it, has dealt with it, or if my experience was unusual.

i do think that if it conspiratorial thinking seems more widespread or extreme in the united states, it might have to do with stuff how it has seeped into media outlets. and that goes both ways. for example, just now i was reading about how tucker carlson suggested to his audience that maybe the football player who suffered cardiac arrest on national television, last night, had to do with him taking the covid vaccine. carlson is the most popular news show in the country, by far. but then, on the other hand, i was also exposed to the conspiratorial thinking because the politics blog i was reading (https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/01/crackpot-anti-vaxx-conspiracy-theory-reaches-most-watched-program-on-cable-news) gets more clicks and views when they cover right wing figures who are suggesting conspiracy theories -- whether you're the target for the conspiracy or you think you're a 3rd party observer of the nonsense, either way you get engulfed in the details of the conspiracy.

but i think my experience is pretty common. ...i still don't know if it's everywhere and everyone deals with it, has dealt with it, or if my experience was unusual.

and i also contradict myself a lot! lol

anyway, definitely no shade on everyone who will enjoy the callaghan film! i think he's really funny and i enjoyed a lot of his earlier videos. i guess you just have to be in the right place for it

Karl fwiw my favorite part of the movie was the post-January 6th return visit to a family with a very bright ~10yo son who had been super into Q conspiracy bullshit, and now seems to have come back down to earth and realized he fell for a hoax

Annnnd that's why I don't post before coffee lol

lol!

wait, so did that part of the movie actually happen? did the kid figure it out? rooting for him, if it's the same one from the "q family" clip youtube posted upthread. (and obviously rooting for the kid whoever he is)

fwiw YouGov is one of the sources I roll my eyes at and I think their polls self-select for chumps who think doing YouGov surveys is useful

I signed up and used the site for a while to get a feel for what their deal was. Their value proposition is that if you do a bunch of surveys/polls you get enough credit to... I have no idea, I didn't get that far because you get an insanely low number of points for each thing you finish. They'll email you to request you complete a political poll, but once you're on the site it'll prompt you to complete other ones. And many of them are total gibberish, or variants on "which of these brands have you heard of" or "which of these streaming shows have you watched"

So anyone who's regularly doing the polls thinks they're going to get a reward at some point and doesn't mind clicking on garbage that's one step above a chumbox

xp yeah, the Q family gets revisited and surprisingly Andrew's found one of the few families that was fully bought-in and are completely disenchanted following Biden's inauguration. The dad repeats variations of "if this was all fake, then why did people do it? what does anyone get out of it?" while acknowledging that it all seems to have been a hoax

I think the denouement of the doc is good. The other interviewee, the youtube conspiracist who lives in a trailer, gets flat-out asked about a particular detail of his own past and it hits pretty hard

fwiw the Q family content in the documentary actually takes place in their home and Andrew interviews the entire family, and sits with the dad at his computer while asking about the Q content shown on screen

xp very fair re: yougov, i don't bring them up often, but i'll try to bring that down to zero.

in this case, it seems a bit more complicated because it seems to be related to research - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0270429 - that seems more rigorous, funded by NSF, peer reviewed, etc. however, they also note that the polls were carried out "in partnership with YouGov", so they may have shit the bed from the beginning.

i have canadian family members who have been red-pilled by conspiracy stuff too, but i do see a massive cultural difference with the USA: it comes down to Fox News (though maybe also, per Callaghan, CNN/MSNBC have a role from the other side?). A **mainstreaming** of fringe ideas which fundamentally changes the role they play in the culture.

societies have always had fringe/extremist groups. but the scariest thing seems like it's when fringe groups are legitimated into the mainstream and even self-identify that way. we're worried about that in canada with the new Conservative Party leader, but the media portrayal of these ideas is still a world away from Tucker et al

it's not a 100% blame thing, but a lot of it comes down to rupert murdoch. the seeds of a lot of what is happening today comes from his invasion of U.S. media. a quick google seems to indicate that his family doesn't own a paper or tv outlet in Canada, although not from lack of trying. is that still true? honestly, keeping him and his horrible family out of the country is maybe the #1 practical thing which can be done to keep the population relatively sane.

it comes down to Fox News (though maybe also, per Callaghan, CNN/MSNBC have a role from the other side?

there is def a bluepill version of this via msnbc primarily that emerged during the trump era... nyt ran a column on the concept of the "msnbc mom" some years ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/opinion/sunday/msnbc-cable-news-viewers-moms.html

but of course russia conspiracy theories are on balance less harmful than Qanon, pizzagate type conspiracy theories to say nothing of the meat and potatoes "black people don't want jobs and are being sent cell phones for free by the federal govt" fox news programming of yore

yeah I can definitely agree with that. my wife used to watch Maddow and while she's clearly very intelligent she dedicates a lot of time to like, combing over flight logs and weird tax deductions and doing the "I'm not saying X...BUT if you were to do X, this is what you'd do" sort of thing. kinda convincing when you're watching it until a couple years later when nothing comes of it. that's kind of what confuses me about the QAnon stuff. they've been wrong about everything. I don't really get how broken your brain has to be to be like "any day now" when the last 300 specific predictions turned out to be completely false.

fwiw I enjoyed his interview with the QAnon Shaman. I know everyone says not to give these people airtime but what I dig about Callaghan's approach is that it separates the politics out of it, somewhat. rather I think it explores the sort of mindset that leads a person to take this sort of thing seriously. He wasn't a sympathetic figure exactly but I think it contextualizes having him as the face of the insurrection when you find out this isn't even one of the 10 strangest things about the dude. He has a way of drilling down and asking specific questions not meant as gotchas but rather to expose that these people's brains really do not work the same way ours do.

I had some cable tv streaming service in the early years (2017ish) and the promise of Maddow's show promising WE HAVE REAL TRUMP TAKEDOWN CONTENT was hyped to hell for a day and then within thirty seconds it became clear they had like eight lines of one tax return

I was never on the "wow the good media is going to take down the bad man" bandwagon but, holy shit, I just gave up on the idea anyone in the media would ever do anything useful during the Trump years unless it was just an across the board event everyone would have to just mumble out the facts on

I think Andrew succinctly summarizes how both sides pander but in different ways, where the right wing will jump on the fringe and the left will not but is grasping for views

I had some cable tv streaming service in the early years (2017ish) and the promise of Maddow's show promising WE HAVE REAL TRUMP TAKEDOWN CONTENT was hyped to hell for a day and then within thirty seconds it became clear they had like eight lines of one tax return

i remember that day well. i was definitely on ilx for all of it, lol. if i remember they had a countdown clock to the reveal, even

That was like the first failed "we got him!" moment.

Thought the movie was good. 80 minutes of Channel 5 is a lot but it's mercifully lean for what it is.

Highlight:

"Have you heard the term 'projection' before?" "Yeah, Hilary Clinton does it all the time."

it's not a 100% blame thing, but a lot of it comes down to rupert murdoch. the seeds of a lot of what is happening today comes from his invasion of U.S. media. a quick google seems to indicate that his family doesn't own a paper or tv outlet in Canada, although not from lack of trying. is that still true? honestly, keeping him and his horrible family out of the country is maybe the #1 practical thing which can be done to keep the population relatively sane.

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, January 4, 2023 3:11 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Did you come across this confusing read? https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/nov/08/mounties-murdoch-sun-tv-news lol. That channel did start up in 2011 and was gone by 2015. As for what his money might be in up here, I'm not sure. Maybe Conrad Black keeps him at bay.

tw: allegations
https://www.reddit.com/r/h3h3productions/comments/104hg1q/twsa_channel_5_andrew_callaghan_allegations/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

TW SA
Here’s here update video with “receipts” ppl are asking for + multiple other people with stories. Coercion + intoxication are his pattern apparently. My heart goes out to this woman & everybody else Andrew Callaghan has affected. pic.twitter.com/GMHIde8yma

— care-oh (@babytriggy) January 7, 2023

Damn. I for real wondered if something like this would come out (early/mid 20s dude, public figure, traveling around the country, clearly some partying/alcohol/drugs involved, like a band on tour without the gigs), but it seems like this may go way beyond a messy hookup.

when I saw him on Office Hours I did wonder how well adjusted this guy might be, given that he's spent his entire adult life living in an RV trying to find the craziest people in the country and just going wherever they lead him. I mean it's kind of the central point of this whole documentary, when you surround yourself with a certain type of person you can't help but become one of them yourself. sucks to hear about this though.

as for the movie I thought it was pretty good, I think it gets to the core of the issue which is not so much the political stuff but rather the "information war". he did a good job portraying Alex Jones as conniving and even kind of savvy, though I wonder if Andrew knew how much he himself was playing into that by actually appearing on his show. I was worried he was going a bit out of his way to make the leader of the Proud Boys look cool but he does drive home that the dude is nothing but a grifter himself who sells Biden merch on the side. agree that it was kind of anti-climactic, Andrew getting Covid while the insurrection was going on was a pretty lame way to end it but I guess it fits, since the entire movement didn't amount to much anyway. I still think about that one dude exiting the Capitol telling the other rioters "eh, nothing's really going on in there"

also hell of a sting at the ending regarding the YouTube conspiracy dude, was not expecting that

Becoming what? One of the bad people? Sounds like he's been a pest (to put it mildest?) going back to high school. You must know this is present in all sorts of groups.

right but he has been doing this since high school. just saying I can't imagine he has a whole lot of normal relationships in his life. also don't wanna insinuate it's because he's hanging around these right wing fringe groups but I imagine there's a sort of nihilism when you surround yourself with the types of people in his videos. obviously there are certain industries, industries with a lot of high-profile men in them, that are just rife with this sort of behavior. not gonna excuse anything though, I guess I'm glad I saw this before this came out cuz I wouldn't wanna see it now

well I canned my Patreon support on the basis of that. Seems all-too-credible to me, what a disappointment.

seems to be making the rounds on Twitter now, from the looks of it this has been going on since before AGNB and is likely why he got booted from Quarter Confessions. appears to be a real pattern too, not just a "he gets sexually aggressive when drunk" thing (which is obviously shitty too, but unfortunately pretty common with young famous men)

this one sucks because along with Louie CK he was supposed to be "one of the good ones" and now hearing this makes me think of his work a lot different, especially the "projection" bit at the end of this movie. hoping the whole Channel 5 thing gets dropped and that the people I still like (for instance Tim Heidecker) stop working with him immediately

Tim Heidecker talks about it at the beginning on Office Hours, looks like they're not involved with him anymore. he seems really shaken up about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWzqSF8PEhM

ugh, what a fucking mess.

I think he handled that as well as you could

I am very much not a fan of the “as a father of a daughter” routine

true, but i liked that he didn't linger on that too long and instead turned the focus towards how he wants his son to grow up and behave around women.

Yeah I think he realized he was doing it and quickly changed it

Wild to me that Tim is a pep-pep

I mean I have a daughter it's true it does change how you look at these things

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/andrew-callaghan-responds-allegations-sexual-assault-1235488040/

fucking awful response

"Andrew is fully committed to working with the appropriate professionals to better understand himself and ways he can grow and improve as a human being, especially with his growing platform and the vulnerabilities it brings.”

fuck you forever IMO

extortion: https://www.reddit.com/r/Channel5ive/comments/10ah34u/the_actual_message_andrews_team_refers_to_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

good lord, HBO money should be able to buy you a better line of bullshit than that.

Probably the worst possible response. Unbelievable

are the "multiple sides" to come or was that referring back to, like, well, don't ask me for money though. ffs.

I mean there generally aren't good responses to these things but ffs implying blackmail when you know the actual message is "now that you have HBO money feel free to kick in some for the therapy I have to go to because of you" is pretty far down the list

only seeing women as people once you have a daughter should be a punishable offense imo
if it changes your mind about women, you've got WORK TO DO beyond parenting

i have been following this story even though i truly didn't know who this guy was before he was outed as a slimeball

I mean there generally aren't good responses to these things but ffs implying blackmail when you know the actual message is "now that you have HBO money feel free to kick in some for the therapy I have to go to because of you" is pretty far down the list

― frogbs, Friday, 13 January 2023 14:21 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it doesn't seem crazy to me that you'd read that message and infer that the writer is suggesting they might expose the subject unless a donation is made, or at least that they might be less likely to expose them if given money? This doesn't necessarily make Callaghan any more sympathetic, but I don't understand why so may people are talking like it's far-fetched to see an implicit threat there

i don't see it personally and he is also transparently inviting more abuse for this person

cool guy hope he explodes

yes i want him to melt completely.

it is genuinely physically sickening to see men (ones I know personally as well as ones I don't like the above video) reveal that before they reproduced and a daughter came out, they didn't think about "this stuff" (sexual coercion and assault) very closely. it's -- i don't have words for it tbh. it's sickening.

It’s like “I just discovered females exist and they have feelings and rights”

From like 2000-2010 I tried to get men--friends, strangers, neighbors, ilxors--to care about street harassment/sexual assault of women in public spaces and never succeeded, so totally yes it is sickening and also it's just. so. boring. that we can't ever move the conversation any further along, we're still doing this.

I despair.

he is also transparently inviting more abuse for this person

yeah it's absolutely horrific and dangerous. i'm disgusted that he has chosen to respond this way.

idk I personally don't think it's like that exactly, just that when you have children every time you hear any story about someone the same age you think "that could be my kid". like the St. Judes commercials now make me genuinely emotional whereas in the past they were just sad. I mean obviously yeah it sucks that some people genuinely never think about this sort of thing but I'm hoping the last 10 years has made some progress on that front

everyone knows parenting changes people in countless ways. that is not controversial. again, it's the idea that it's virtuous (and worth saying out loud in an exculpatory fashion) to rely on one's own children for this type of enlightenment that sickens me personally. it's proof that many men thought differently before.

using your children as a source for this type of enlightenment makes it very clear that reproducing is what it took for the enlightenment to occur -- that before, they didn't give it much consideration. there is not any doubt of the feelings.

i have now paraphrased this twice.

LL otm

Beheading for anyone who says “As a father of daughters”

well yeah if you didn't think about "this stuff" at all before than that's on you

Callaghan's response is especially shitty because he thinks that one text is the smoking gun that this was a shakedown (which it didn't quite read that way to me and also doesn't preclude the facts that the things he's accused of happened), but the accusor also posted another video with tons of messages from other women who had similar things happen to them and he's seems content to ignore all those to try to portray this as made up extortion

I thought it was bullshit of Variety to publish her name, especially if you're gonna mention the extortion claims. I am guessing you could find it if you were looking but still dont do that

xp RIGHT only i would omit "at all" and swap for "closely/deeply enough"

i just searched ILX for threads about consent and the one i clicked on (about alcohol use, rape, and consent) contains what may be the angriest posts i have ever posted
it's from 2006!!

use your parental status to teach your kids about consent (i am not in favor of beheading)

One possibility that the ability for people to articulate almost any position at all, as well as inability to defend that position if questioned, has degraded to the point where any statement gets crouched in personalized Appeals to Identity.

And so you get the “As a” construction for declaring one’s position or opinion on anything far more often that would think one should. It’s not that somebody didn’t believe a thing before having that identify, it’s that they add that in as extra moral weight to the argument. You can’t make appeals to some sorta universal value or norm because those have lost credibility.

Of course, this changes when it comes to reactionaries, who really don’t see the problem with a thing that affects other until it has some palpable impact to someone in their sphere if not themselves.

non-discussed point and tangential to the larger issue so forgive me but: one of the many unpleasant and tin-eared elements of the "as a father" construction is that it presumes that having a child imbues the speaker with a level of compassion and insight unavailable to the non-breeder which has been disproven by many if not most of the parents i know.

well right I mean when Uvalde happened when talking about it with people who aren't parents I wouldn't bring up the fact that I myself have kids because I don't want to imply "it hits me different because I'm a father". though in reality it kinda does! like, not compared against other people, but to myself before I had kids, especially since I drop my kids off at an elementary school that is also by a wide margin Hispanic, so yeah I have to think about it constantly

part of the objection is not that your perspective isn't valid, just that it's not necessary or helpful to invoke it in a situation where you and your experience simply isn't the story. cf "i have lots of black friends" or "my cousin is gay" or "i can say it because i grew up around here"

perhaps it's an "as a me" rather than an "as a father"

xpost

xp
That's valid, but we're moving away from the crucial point that the father/daughter statement isn't really about being a parent (though I agree with forks on that aspect), it's about gender and othering. Why do you relate to the abstract category of "woman" differently after you've fathered a woman? Why didn't that happen when you partnered with one? Or via the relationship with your own mother? When you hear about men being assaulted does that feel different from hearing about women (and if so, why)?

sure but parenthood IS different than those things, when your kid gets hurt and goes to the ER it's a hundred times worse than having to go for yourself even though you aren't feeling any actual physical pain, which I don't think you would say about your black friends or gay cousin. totally agreed that saying it out loud isn't ever really helpful but I'll still defend Tim Heidecker here because he clearly just doesn't know what to say besides "I believe them and we aren't working with him anymore"

That's valid, but we're moving away from the crucial point that the father/daughter statement isn't really about being a parent (though I agree with forks on that aspect), it's about gender and othering. Why do you relate to the abstract category of "woman" differently after you've fathered a woman? Why didn't that happen when you partnered with one? Or via the relationship with your own mother? When you hear about men being assaulted does that feel different from hearing about women (and if so, why)?

I mean if it happened the other way around I'd probably feel the same way but when you're talking about this sort of sexually predatory behavior it is like 99% men. either way idk if it's so much that you "relate to women" now as it is the idea of someone taking advantage of your child in a way that scars them is a sickening and infuriating thought, as is the thought that Callaghan was only like 17 when he started doing this which is still pretty damn young, and it also terrifies me to think my son could somehow turn out that way

Oh, well tbc, thinking about the actual parenting aspects of this problem seems like a normal, good, and responsible reaction to me!

But that isn't really what saying "as a father of daughters" signifies in the wider world, as La Lechera already addressed. Even if one means it to indicate parental concerns, it would be better to find a more precise way to say that—the shorthand implies a belated and doubtful arrival at basic human empathy, which also inadvertently (?) gives men who aren't parents, including abusers, permission to postpone feeling or acting on that empathy until they're adults, or possibly never.

Well fuck. I was hoping this dude was better than that. Especially as an aspiring reporter working in the social media medium. Kill your idols indeed.

he's put out a video response which I watched 10 seconds of it before closing it

nm just watched it

better than I expected which is not saying much because the bar was right above the earth's molten core

he asks if his victims would reach out for an apology - well the last time one of them reached out, you framed it as extortion, fuck you

I thought it was a good apology.

Seemed to take actual ownership which to me, is the only bar for a good apology and sadly is not hit by a lot of celebrities in these situations. If he does what he says he’s going to do re: 12 step, therapy, stepping away from public life, then it seems like he has himself on a good track to change.

I don’t know actually, some of the apology is a bit week. this all sucks

he also said "I"ve always taken no for an answer"

ffs this is the #1 thing on Reddit?

Deleting some crap I just tapped, ripping this apart. Fuck him. Yeah he said some of the good things he ought to, in the midst of loads of face saving, self-contradictory nonsense.

More women: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2023/02/28/78881322/two-women-accuse-documentary-filmmaker-andrew-callaghan-of-rape-sexual-assault

jesus, those stories are even worse

https://www.instagram.com/p/CurvACkPHln/

I honestly forgot all about this guy, but one of his videos about the border popped up in the margins of something else I was watching. I have no idea what ultimately came of the accusations or cancellation or rehabilitation, but it looks like he's doing some good work.

This honestly looks really good. Happened to hear him interviewed about it.

https://www.dearkellyfilm.com/about

incognito Youtube window recommended a Channel 5 interview with Mayo Pete - guess anti-trans and interviews with people who got cancelled by the woke mind virus (credibly accused of sex crimes) are going to be his 2028 lane

AC‘s Jubilee episode is a blast.