on my Twitter account at zubymusic. I posted up a nine second video of me doing a deadlift in the gym. I was lifting 230 kilograms, it's actually well below my maximum, but I just had a clip of me doing it on my phone and I posted it up with a caption saying I keep hearing about how there's no biological difference between men and women in 2019. So I've been destroyed the British women's deadlift record without trying.
And I wrote PSI identified as a woman while lifting the weight, so don't be a bigot. And this tweet caught absolute fire. It went hyper viral. It's got 1.7 million views on the original video.
I think it got about 55,000 likes and 20 something thousand retweet. It just went nuts. It went viral in the UK, in Canada, in America, in Europe, like all over the world. I'm joined by the strongest female deadlift champion on the internet, Zuby.
Welcome to the show. How's going, Chris? How are you doing? Fantastic.
I have you on, man. Recently spoke to Brian Carroll, who is a multiple record holder in powerlifting for men and I was speaking to one for women as well. That's right, man. Deadlift and bench press, 84K G-weight glass women's, of course.
How heavy is the squat? What have you got to get your squat to? Man, I haven't squatted properly for ages because of an injury that's been harassing me for literally about five years now. But my personal best on the squat is 190.
And I believe the women's record in my weight class is about 210, something like that. A little bit of work and you've got the total as well. Yeah, man. I think I could do it.
I can completely annihilate the deadlift and the bench press ones. But the squat will take a little bit of work. So for everyone who's listening, who doesn't have a clue what we're talking about, can you take us through what's happened over the last few months of your life? Yeah, the last few months have been quite the whirlwind.
So going back to February now, at the end of February, on my Twitter account at Zuby Music, I posted up a nine second video of me doing a deadlift in the gym. I was lifting 230 kilograms, which is 500 and something pounds. It's actually well below my maximum. But I just had a clip of me doing it on my phone.
And I posted it up with a caption saying I keep hearing about how there's no biological difference between men and women in 2019. So watching me destroy the British women's deadlift record without trying. And I wrote PSI identified as a woman while lifting the weight. So don't be a bigot.
And this tweet caught absolute fire. It went hyper viral. It's got 1.7 million views on the original video. I think it got about 55,000 likes and 20 something thousand retweet.
It just went viral in the UK, in Canada, in America, in Europe, all over the world. And then newspapers and media started picking up on it. It was covered by Fox News, the Daily Wire, Sky News, BBC, a whole bunch of different outlets and a bunch of podcasts, such as Loud With Crowder, The Ben Shapiro Show, and the one that really catalyzed a few things, which was the Joe Rogan experience. So it just went bonkers.
At the time I tweeted it, I had 17,000 followers. And as of this week, I'm the proud owner of over 100, I don't want to say owner. I'm the proud owner. Also, the right term.
Yeah, well, I have over 100,000 Twitter followers now. So it's increased just crazily this year, as well as my YouTube audience and my podcast audience and my music listeners. Everything I do has just exploded. It was a real catalyst for everything I do, which is awesome, but also kind of ridiculous.
Yeah, no, this kind of real asymmetry with viral content and stuff like that is a real blessing when you get it right. And what's hilarious is the fact that this is you working up to like an RPE7. That's like a comfortable 75% pull. I don't know whether anyone's discussed this yet, but we've had a number of debates on the podcast about whether pulling sumo is cheating or not.
No, it's not. It's not even easier for everybody. Well, there we go. We've heard it.
I mean, if it were easy, when people say it's easier, I'm like, then why don't you pull it? It's competition legal. So if it were easier, every single powerlifter would pull sumo, but they don't. So it's kind of silly logic to even say that.
I mean, it depends on how you're built. For some people, it is easier, but not for everybody or every. I mean, if you even look at the sort of world strongest men, guys, most of them don't pull sumo. Yeah, interesting, isn't it?
Yeah, most of them don't. It really depends on your build, your sort of leg to arm ratio, your hips, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, we've got a very tall co-host on the show, Johnny, who pulls 310 and in the 103, 105, whatever it is, people sumo, but we just wind him up by saying it's sometimes easy. I can do both, by the way.
Anyone want any? No, that's funny. So this has happened. It's absolutely exploded.
And what has that done in terms of exposure for your content now? Because having a Twitter and I strongly advise everyone who's listening to go and check out Azuby music, because it is the caliber of that content doesn't smack of someone who only had sort of 17,000 followers a few months ago. It's very insightful, very well curated for Twitter, but it lists some very nice sort of social commentary and all that sort of stuff. So what was the grind up to that point?
What was happening up to that? Wow. Well, so I'm a professional rapper. I'm an independent musician.
I've been doing it full-time since 2011, but I've been rapping since 2006. So if you go on my Twitter profile, you see my Twitter has been active since July 2009. And before that, I was on Facebook and YouTube and before that, I was on MySpace if you want to take it back again. So I've been active on social media for a very long time.
I've been building my audience for a long time, primarily through my music and my gigs and my concerts and selling CDs, traveling all around the UK, whether that's down in Born Method, the Isle of Wight or up in Newcastle or Glasgow. I've been to every city in the UK multiple times doing shows, selling my CDs, talking to people, just promoting my music. So that was the thing that I was initially known for. And that's the main way that I built up my organic audience.
So it's been a really long grind to get to where things are. I've released five albums and three EPs. I've got eight releases and total out there. Those are all available on iTunes and Spotify and all that.
Sold over 25,000 albums out of my backpack, just traveling around the UK, put out a ridiculous number of 55,000 tweets on my Twitter. And then crazy amounts of content on Facebook and YouTube and all these different places. So it's all been great because I laid such a strong foundation. It meant that when that tweet went viral, it meant two things, or maybe more than two things.
Number one is that people came and a lot of them stayed because they realized that I had a lot more to offer beyond just one funny, silly tweet. People go viral all the time on Twitter, but they don't have 100,000 followers because the tweet goes viral, but then people go to the page and there's nothing particularly interesting there beyond that one off funny tweet. So people don't really follow and people disappear with mine. People came and then they were like, oh, he's a rapper.
Oh, he's a music actually good. Oh, he does podcast. Oh, he's like his podcast. Oh, he's got interesting stuff to say.
And he's funny. So a lot of people came and they stayed. And then also it just meant that I've been able to deal with some of the craziness, the massive amount of love and attention, massive amounts of hate and criticism. I've been dealing with both of these things as a professional musician for a well over a decade.
So I'm kind of seasoned to it. All that's happened is that the volume has increased, which is something I'm still adjusting to and the volume is going to increase again. So in a way, it's kind of what I wanted. It's just it's just odd how it happened, you know, that that was of all the content I've put out there, all the things I've done, of all the money I've spent, of all the traveling I've done, the idea that it was that ridiculous tweet that didn't even have anything to do with my music to open so many people up to who I am and what I do that it's been very bizarre, but I'm thankful for it.
Yeah, when you're grinding away five years ago, 10 years ago in a studio in the last end of London somewhere, trying to get the same verse 20 times, and then well, you should have really been doing is just working on you see my deadlift form and well, one of my friends, one of my friends, Jose made a really good point. He said, you know what, man, it took you 15 years of training to even make that video. Nice. So he was like, you know, that wasn't an overnight, like, most people cannot lift what you just lifted.
So most people would not be able to even make that video. So I was like, actually, you know, when you think of it that way, that does make a lot of sense. It's quite good metaphor, I guess, in a way that it can look like something just, oh, I'm just going to do this thing. But it's actually not a lot of people are able to do that thing because they didn't put in the groundwork beforehand.
So what might be easier for that one person, just like the guy you were talking about earlier who can squat over a thousand pounds, right? I'm sure for him doing that, it's not going to look particularly difficult, but the average person cannot. No, average person can't even do a quarter of that. So yeah, yeah, so, yeah, but that's how the world works, man.
Okay, so one of the quotes I really love is look equals preparation plus opportunity. And I think that definitely seems to kind of be what's happened. And I know a lot of the podcasts and people that you've been on recently have focused on the issues and what the actual narrative is around that. And we can go under that in a second.
But for people that are listening and, you know, everyone who has open some degree of open mobility and is on that grind is hoping for that moment, right, that breakout moment. But what you've identified there, I think, is really interesting, which is that the same way as someone who's a stone mason working away with a hammer and a chisel, it's not the hundred strike which actually breaks the stone. It's a 99 that came before that. And you totally correct with what you say that it's all going to be handed an opportunity and having this super viral moment.
I recently read a blog that said actually there's a fairly high likelihood of everyone or most people, a significant majority of people going viral to one degree or another at some point now because of the way that degrees of separation work online. And you're like, okay, cool, like that gives you a platform. And that is an opportunity. But if you are just going to hope that that creates some springboard out of nowhere and there's no substance behind it, the preparation hasn't allowed you to get ready for the opportunity.
There's nothing in there. So I think there's like a real amount of poetic justice that's kind of a good thing. Despite the fact that obviously you've worked a lot harder on other things than pulling like the flip off the floor. And so, you know, you've had a lot of time to view this from a front row seat.
What do you think that the reaction to the tweet that you put out, what do you think it says as a commentary? Have you got an overall conclusion of how it's made you feel or your thoughts at the moment? I would say that the thing I've really picked up on over the last few years, but especially over the last few months has become, I guess, more of a public figure and a better known person is that there are so many people who feel silenced, shall we say. So, so many people were very thankful for that tweet because they've been seeing stuff going on and they're like, Oh my gosh, like things are getting observed, things are getting ridiculous, objective reality is being disposed of and whatever.
There's millions of people around the world are feeling that, not billions of people. And so that tweet was just something that very in a visual way and in a satirical way just exposed some of the silliness in the world that people are aware of, right? So this whole idea of, like I said, in the comment, you know, the idea of men and women not being different or having the same physical and strength capabilities, right? Some of these ideas or the idea that a man like myself with my beard and my muscles can identify as a woman and everybody is supposed to just accept that I'm a woman and not question it and allow me to compete in women's sports and play rugby against them and box against them and lift against them and all that, right?
That some people are saying this from an ideological perspective, trying to say that's all fine. And the vast majority of people do not agree with that. The vast majority of people are like, no, that's ridiculous. That doesn't make sense.
That's not based in reality. But for various reasons and societal pressures, they feel like they can't express that or if they can express it, they can only do it on a very small platform or perhaps in private. So by me putting that out there, it was kind of like everybody exhaled. I think you're like, oh, he's the guy.
Yeah, I'm like, finally, somebody, right? Finally, someone just said it and showed it, right? It's visual as well. So it's like, you, I think it's one thing, if you read something, it's not, I think the video, the video as well, just the fact that people saw it and it was a very clear rebuttal of these arguments that people make.
So it was like, okay, no, he wasn't actually trying during that, and I'm not a professional lifter. I'm not, I'm not competing in powerlifting or strongest man or whatever. There's loads of guys who are considerably stronger than me. So the fact that I, a recreational lifter, can just go and shatter the women's records as could many other recreational lifters, that kind of puts a nail in the coffin of this idea of, okay, there's no physical differences, which I don't even know how anyone who inhabits the real world could say to begin with.
But I have heard these arguments. I have seen people try to argue that the reason why men are physically stronger and faster is because of socialization. And if girls were raised differently and boys were raised differently, they'd be equally strong. And you're just, when people say these things, I'm just kind of looking at them blankly.
Like what, like, it's a bit like, it reminds me a lot of the emperors new clothes, this kind of situation. It is. Mercifully. And I don't know if you agree.
The UK to me seems to be at least a little bit more attached to reality than America. Now, I don't know if that's simply because most of the big publishing and social commentator platforms are coming from America that you hear people like loud with crowd, or Joe Rogan or Gavin McGinnis, or whoever it might be talking about these issues. I haven't been personally exposed to any of it in the UK. I'm, you know, pretending.
Okay. I've seen a lot of it here. Really? Is that internet or real life?
Both. Well, even in the world of music. Okay. All right.
Because I've seen this in the world of music. I mean, a couple of weeks ago, I was filling out a form and it got to the section where they compile, you know, at the end of when you fill out a form and they asked you for your gender and ethnicity and that kind of, I can't remember what they call it, that kind of information. Okay. I got to the gender section and there were about six different options in the drop down list, or you could put other and write your own thing.
And there was a little asterisk saying, gender is not the same as sex, gender is whatever you personally feel or identify as. Okay. I've seen that before. I get down to ethnicity and you can pick your own ethnicity too.
All right. This is on like a professional form. And so it says, yeah, similar, similar wording, ethnicity is not the same as race or skin color. It's doesn't, it's not necessarily linked to your nationality or your origin.
Ethnicity is defined as what you personally feel and what you personally identify as. So, according to this form, I could write down that I'm a Native American woman and everybody is supposed to take that 100% seriously. And stuff like that, it's just, and there's lots of other things that I've seen. But yeah, I mean, that wasn't a UK that was UK based.
There's quite a, there's a lot of, it's happening in the UK too, it's happening in all the entire anglosphere as far as I'm aware, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. I don't know if it's maybe the English language, maybe because we don't have a gender nouns and stuff like that. So maybe it's easier for people to get away with this warping of reality. But yeah, so I have seen it trickling in there.
And with some stuff, there are certain things I don't really care about. There's lots of things that I think are silly, but it's like whatever. But when certain lines start getting crossed, then that's where I feel like people do need to step in and draw certain lines and boundaries and go, okay, wait, hang on, this isn't a good idea because X, Y, and Z, you know, having Anthony Joshua identify as a woman and go and compete in women's boxing, that's not a good idea. That's not good.
That's not safe. That's not fair. That's not doing that. But according to certain people's rules, as long as he feels that he's a woman, then according to them, that's okay.
And again, it's just no. Yeah, it's bizarre as well. I feel a lot like I'm trading on eggshells with this sort of stuff. Everybody does.
Yeah, Stephen Wood for the guy behind rationality rules. Very, very big YouTube channel philosophy YouTube channel. Do you know who I'm referring to? I think I've heard of it, but I'm not really up the channel.
Rationality rules is really good YouTube channel. And this guy understands cognitive biases, ethics and philosophy to a degree of fidelity, like pretty much probably no one out of young guys while at just out of university, court of a male subs. And he treads on a good bit of poo on his shoe, talking about transgender athletes. And as far as I could see on the video, he maybe didn't have holy formed views, but it wasn't.
It was in no way derogatory as far as I could see, etc, etc. And he gets denounced by the atheist society of America, which is like this company that he's worked up towards for his entire life. And you're like, I don't know, are you people not supposed to be the ones that are the closest to reality, the ones that are the least sort of ideologically bound? Like it should be complete reason, etc, etc.
And then he goes on this huge tirade apology thing, and I'm watching this guy, he's desperately trying to save his YouTube channel. And I get it, like, I love his content and it's a shame that it came to that. And maybe he did make a genuine new turn. But how strong was the backlash that that threatens his YouTube channel?
Pretty strong. Like, I think more than anything his concern was that as soon as he got ratified by this atheist society of America, I think it might be Texas. Sorry, do you know why I'm laughing? It's because this sounds like I often joke that certain atheists are more religious than religious people.
So when you're talking about this atheist society, like ostracizing this heretic, it makes me laugh because I'm just like, well, that's extremely, that's like a very religious sort of thing. You know what I mean? That's like funny. Yeah, I mean, are people trying to find religion in their choice of gender?
Are they trying to find religion in their adoption of a political party and stuff like that? Now, I know that that's something that you have commented on before. And thinking about it, I agree, there's a Alan DeBotten from School of Life says something similar. He says that our lack of connection to a greater sense of good and a greater sense of belonging and all of the other things that were the trappings and the trimmings that came along with religion are actually what people are now trying to substitute into their life.
Yeah, I've been saying that for a very long time. I've just got a bigger megaphone now. Because I've observed it. The thing is, I think that fundamentally, the word religion or religious sort of weird, certain people out, they don't really like it.
But I think there's almost two ideas of religion. You've got organized form of religion, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. But there's also another meaning of religious, just like someone can go to the gym religiously. Someone can do their work on a computer program religiously.
And people know what that means. So human beings do, as far as I'm aware, like this isn't something I've scientifically studied or anything. This is just anecdotal from living on the earth for three decades and a bit. Right?
Is that most people are, I think people sort of have a religious core. And that can be filled with an organized religion, but it can also be filled with strong political ideology, a strong dietary ideology. You get religious vegans, you get religious carnivores. A strong idea that could be socio-political, it could be a radical feminism.
It could be football's very religious. Professional sports is very religious. Yeah. I mean, it's very religious.
It's the same, it's the same circuitry. You see what I mean? It's the same circuitry that those things sort of act on. And so what I do find with, I don't want to, I don't like to have a group everybody, but with certain people who are atheists or against religion or whatever, is they can often be religious in a whole different way.
You can even be a religious atheist, as far as I'm concerned. You have people who are they're more militant and aggressive and firm in their atheism than I am in my own Christianity. You see what I mean? I'm kind of like a humble religious person in that I accept that I could be wrong.
So I believe that God exists. I believe certain things, but I'll be the first to put my hands up and say, you know what, I could be wrong. I could die. And it turns out the whole thing that I believe in was just wrong.
That's entirely possible. But I've come across certain people and it's almost like they don't even, they're so from, they're like absolutely no way on earth. God exists. You are totally wrong.
All these other billions of people are totally wrong. I know this 100%. I know for certain that there's no afterlife. And I was like, whoa, like, to me, that's weird.
Because I'm like, I don't know. That's also to me like, wow, that's more hardcore. Yeah. It sounds like a theater crowd.
It's not to be fun. Anyone. You do have people who are traditionally religious, we're the same. We think absolutely this is the one true faith and everybody else is wrong and everybody else is going to hell and everyone who doesn't believe exactly what I believe is wrong.
To me, you've got to have a level of humility because to me, it's a faith. Right? Faith means that you accept that you don't have all of the scientific evidence and data and whatever. Nobody can write some proof.
The counter to every person believes in God is always all. That's your proof that God exists. And it's like, well, in a scientific sense, I can't give you like a formula or something that will prove. I can give you like my logical rational explanation as to why I think God exists.
But I can't give you some rigorous proof that you could in physics or in mathematics or something because you're talking about a whole different dimension of reality as well, where I don't even think science sort of applies. You see what I mean. It's like the concept of infinity. We all kind of know what infinity is, but infinity is beyond our human capability to understand, right?
You can't, how can you have a number or something that never was always there and it doesn't, like, you feel like you understand it for two seconds and then two seconds later, you don't understand it's going to happen. So if you're grasping, so try to hold on to water in your hands. Yeah, I totally, totally agree. A analogous situation that's occurred recently is this Mario Lopez debacle, which is just exploded in America.
So for the listeners that don't know what I'm talking about, the guy that played AC Slater in Save by the Bell that you watched on TV 20 years ago, and has done like, he's a host for MTV and he does other bits and stuff. He is, for a long time, the super clean, smiley guy on your TV, fantastic teeth. You know what I mean? He's just there.
He's been super positive. He's just getting, he's getting it done. And he said, on a, I think it was actually a Candace Owens show where he says this and he says, look, I never want to tell anyone how to parent their kids, obviously. And I think if you come from a place of love, you really can't go wrong.
But at the same time, my God, if you're three years old and you're saying you're feeling a certain way, or you think you're a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I just think it's dangerous as a parent to make that determination then and be like, okay, well, you're going to be a boy or a girl, whatever the case may be. It's sort of alarming. And my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on. Now that to me is almost a pedestrian paragraph because of how many caveats he's had to put in place.
It's like, it's I'm not this, it's, I'm not being certain here. And I'm just going to try and be polite like that in anyone's world. That is overly polite. It's literally like the boss in its politeness.
And he got annihilated. Did you watch the fallout with this? I've seen some of it. Yeah, I've seen some of it.
The only mistake he made was apologizing. The apology, the subsequent apology, the comments I made were ignorant and insensitive. And I now have a deeper understanding of how hurtful they were. Lopez said in a statement, I have been and always will be an ardent supporter of the LGBTQ community.
And I'm going to use this opportunity to better educate myself moving forward. I'll be more informed and thoughtful. What's your thoughts on that? His initial statement was completely correct.
His apology was disappointing because he should not have apologized. I know why he did. Of course I understand. I can only imagine what kind of a fire and pressure he came under from his producers and colleagues and coworkers and whatever.
But if you're not wrong, don't apologize. And especially don't apologize to one of these crazy mobs that just goes after you because they go after, you know, they pick targets who they think are vulnerable or weak, right? It's like a herd of lions trying to find the antelope that's limping. So they can all mob on them in a pack, right?
They'll never do it one on one. They'll come in a pack and they'll try to attack someone. And if you stand firm, then you don't back down, then 48 hours later, they'll find a different target. So I think you should have just weathered the storm.
And then, but yeah, I'm a little disappointed that he backed down to the mob because I thought people would have learned by now not to make apologies for things you're not sorry for. If I say two plus two equals four, and someone else thinks it equals five and they set a mob on me to try to get me to say that it equals five, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to say no, it equals four. I don't care how many people are telling me it equals five.
It equals four. And the point that he made was actually quite important because we were talking about certain lines not being crossed. And I think two of those lines, which are sensitive, which are both things we touched on here, one of them is when it comes to people's safety and security. Okay.
So for example, in the whole sports thing, okay? So if you've got in any sort of physical contact sport or anything like that, if you have people who are biological men competing against women or being in their changing rooms and stuff like that, that's a safety and a security concern that you would have thought that, you know, anyone who considers himself any type of, you don't even need to be a feminist, right? But you would have certainly thought that the fem lots of the feminists would be up in arms about that. And I know some of them are, but just any person who's reasonable and is concerned for women would be like, okay, we don't want to do that.
That's a bit of a concern. And then the second line that I draw a hard line at is stuff involving kids, man, stuff involving children. You know, I've got, I'm not a parent yet, but I've got nine nieces and nephews. And he was specifically talking about a three year old, okay?
Three year olds don't know anything. Three year olds can't make decisions, let alone life altering ones that will affect everything from their mental well-being to their physical bodies to their ability to reproduce in the future. You want to let someone decide that at the age of three, that is crazy. And that's basically what he was saying.
He didn't even say it in all the words that I am. But that's a crazy idea. That's not, that's, yeah, I mean, I don't even have the words for it. So my business partner has a two month year old and a two and a half year old.
Okay. And the times that I see that two and a half year old, he is easily five different characters an hour. He's an astronaut, then he's a postman, then he's a dinosaur, then he's doing something else, then he's doing an impression of daddy, then he's this that any other, and he don't take any of these things seriously. No.
Because at that age, children don't know what's best for them, which is the exact reason why the parents are around. Now the parents are around because they've left to their own devices. The children would cause some sort of catastrophe. They'd ride the dog in a stream or they'd, you know what I mean, something would go wrong.
They'll kill themselves, man. If you leave the average two year old alone for a couple of hours in a certain environment, they'll kill themselves. There's something dangerous in that room, even if you've nerfed the shit out of everything. Yeah.
There's something in there that they can eat or put in their eye or do whatever it is. You told the right. And to hear, is it child abuse? Is it child abuse to allow children to make those sort of decisions or to support those sort of decisions?
As far as I'm concerned, yes. As far as I'm concerned, yes. I don't think that, you know, once people are adults, once they're 18 plus, let's say, perhaps even a little bit older when you're thinking about brain development, but certainly say 18 plus, then, I mean, you can't, you're not going to give it. No one wants to give a child.
No one thinks a three year old should be able to get a tattoo. No one thinks a three year old. I mean, getting a tattoo is a much more of a minor than going on hormonal treatment or cutting bits off of your reproductive parts, right? But no one would give it three year old tattoo, even if they really, really wanted one.
I've seen some mothers from Newcastle with three-year-olds with other ears pierced though, which is... No, I can understand that one more, actually, really. Less long-term repercussions though. Yeah, so you wouldn't give them alcohol to drink.
You wouldn't let them, of course, they can't consent to anything sexual. And that's the disturbing thing, because it's like, look, if you're going to let little kids start consenting to things, then that's... Some people say slippery slopes aren't a real thing, but no, slippery slopes can be a real thing. And it's like, no, children just do not have that agency.
Children need to be protective. They can't make their own decisions. They can't consent to things. You can't even let them choose what they want to eat for dinner, because they're just going to want to eat Haribo and I swear.
No, in my business plan, I'm saying that exactly. What do you want to eat for dinner? Oh, chicken nuggets and Haribo and ice cream. It's like you can't eat that every day.
Yeah, exactly. You've got to be a parent and be like, no, okay, you're going to have some vegetables, you're going to have some rice, you're going to have some chicken and then you can have a couple of Haribo if you're a good boy or a good girl. So on the other side of that fence, there is an argument that could be made from someone from a difficult leaning in terms of how they look at the world that says, well, if you're not supporting the child in being what they are, that's child abuse. The obvious side to that.
They're wrong. Is that because the starting point is where we need to stick to until someone has agency or a sufficient agency? Yeah. And because certain things are...
Certain things have... So what we're discussing here is something with a permanent life-altering consequences. Okay. If you are I genuinely decided that we wanted to go on hormone therapy and live the remainder of our lives as a woman...
Zudina. Oh, Christine. Yeah. I guess you could still be Chris.
Then people can have their ideas about that and I may have some reasons why I'm skeptical about that personally. But you're a grown man, I'm a grown man and you're an adult and you have agency and if that's the choice you make, then you can do it. But if you are a child and someone wants to put you on hormone blockers or on testosterone or on estrogen or having surgeries, I mean, that's going to affect you for the remainder of your life. And it's well known that most people who experience any kind of gender dysphoria in their young age, most people get over it within a relatively short space of time.
And it's not even that uncommon. For example, if you've got a little boy who's got, say they've got three older sisters. It's not that rare that that little boy at some little point might be, oh, I want to be a girl or he might want to wear his sister's shoes or her dress or whatever, just because they're surrounded by women. But that doesn't mean that that boy is a girl.
It doesn't mean that, oh, he's actually a girl. So we need to put him on hormones and make sure he doesn't go through puberty property and properly and whatever. And that'll affect them. I mean, when they do become a reproductive age, they might not be able to reproduce.
They'll be infertile. They won't be able to have their own children. They may go through all kinds of psychological problems and issues and physical development issues. I mean, Lord knows what kind of kind of worms you're opening.
So let somebody that young make those kind of decisions is it's reprehensible, as far as I'm concerned. It's amazing to meet it. It even sort of needs to be explained. Like sometimes there's certain things I was like, man, how am I even needing to find me?
Yeah, why do I need to justify my position here? And it's such a new thing. It's such a localized thing. I mean, if you go around the world, if you go to anywhere in Africa, anywhere in South America, and almost anywhere in Asia, anywhere in the Middle East, and you start talking about that, they'll look at you like you are a complete crazy person.
They'll be like, what on earth are you talking about that two year old boy can know? Like, what do you mean? Right? They'll want to lock you up for even talking about it.
They're the same species, same genome. Yeah, but it's just definitely not experiencing the same the same situations. One of the things that I keep on thinking about and obviously it's apparent in Mario Lopez's apology is the equivalent exponential growth that you've seen is the same slippery slope on the other side that people can get pushed down from one step of saying, maybe it's not a tremendously good idea to let three year olds change their gender to your transphobic. And it's this exponential increase.
It's a bullying tactic. That's all it is. It's just a tactic, right? People know that if you slap a label on somebody, whether that's racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, whatever Islamophobic, whatever phobia or label people can try to slap on someone.
People do this all day. It's nothing new. It's just a cheap way to try to discredit someone. It's simply a tactic.
And it's a really disgusting one, firstly, because it's slanderous. And secondly, because it minimizes, it dilutes the terms. Okay, if you call everybody who disagrees with you racist, then you're diluting the term for you're diluting what racism actually is, and you're minimizing harm that's caused by genuine racism. And you're also providing cover for actual racists.
Okay, if I've heard the term race, I see it slung around so much now, both in real life and on Twitter, that I myself, I'm pretty desensitized to it. Okay, if someone's like, Oh, that guy's a racist. My first, you know, if you went back 15 years ago, my gut would be to believe them and to be like, Oh, Oh, what's going on? Whereas now my gut is to be like, Oh gosh, do you mean they're actually a real racist?
Or do you just mean that they're a little bit right wing or they're a bit or they're conservative or they like Trump, you know, and it's it's it's got in silly and people are just amping up this rhetoric all the time. You're getting people on Twitter saying, Oh, everybody who supports Trump, every single one of you is supporting white nationalism. I'm like, what about the black guys and the Latinos and the black women and all the Arab people who all like Trump? I mean, you're saying they're all white nationalists?
Like, come on, just think like stop using such ridiculous. You're here criticizing Trump for his rhetoric while staying sane stuff that's far more inflammatory and divisive than anything that comes out of his mouth. So it's just people just need to kind of take a step back and chill. It does it does stop us from getting to the the nuance of the discussion as well, right?
Because as soon as you go from being anything, which isn't zero, if you as soon as you add a one or two or three all the way up to 100, you get pushed 100, which stops stops the ability to have the virtuous middle, which is actually where the devil's in the details, right? And the rubber meets the road at the point where people want to find out what's the reason I enjoy doing this podcast, I like to deconstruct stuff so I can find out exactly where the rubber meets the road with particular issues. And it's one of the most interesting things I think you can do when you're conversing with people. But as soon as like you say, someone that you disagree with gets given an ism or an obia and you're like, well, there we go.
There's conversations over. Yeah, they tried it with me. It didn't work. What ism is an obia's did they give you?
Sexism and transphobia. Okay. Yeah, both for the same tweet as well. But it doesn't stick because it doesn't work.
I just make people look stupid when they call me anything like that. And ultimately, it's not true. So I don't care if someone says if someone calls me sexist, I will literally laugh in their face. Okay, I might even agree and amplify just to like make a joke, right?
I'll tell them I know ridiculous. Yeah, I'll tell them to get back in the kitchen or whatever, even if it's a guy who says it, just like whatever, it's such a dumb thing to say, anybody who knows me knows that I'm not sexist. So I don't I'm not going to go on the defensive and start claiming my righteousness. It's just like, go away.
Like if you call someone something, the appropriate answer, if someone accuses you of something with no evidence and that you're not is to call them an ahole because that's what they're being. No, really, if someone just came up to you, Chris, and was like, Oh, you're racist. And you don't need to you don't need to start justifying why you're not you don't need to go on that they want you to go on the defensive. Yeah, right?
You don't go on the defensive. You just say, no, well, you're being a jerk. You're a jerk because you have no evidence that I am. And I'm not and you're accusing me of being this thing.
So if you want to have a conversation, stop being a jerk and we can talk or the conversation over. But people always feel this need to defend themselves and people who attack in these mobs, they're very like, they're like sharks in the water. Right? So as soon as they there's a little bit of blood, they're like, Oh, we got it.
We got it. We got it. We got it. And then they try to find another target and they keep trying to do it to all these different people.
And most people, you know, they do the false apology. And they they say that, you know, because if anything, okay, in that in that Mario, the opening at no point, did he say why, how or why what he said was wrong? Yeah, right? It's sensitive, deeper understanding.
It's like this. It's like you go on to obiaapology.com. And you know, you put in a certain number of characteristics and then it speeds out this thing because, you know, I mentioned earlier on Russian, how do you rules? And Steven's the first five minutes of his response video with that, it was that language, that exact language right there.
And it's like a struggle session. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in the Soviet Union and in Mao's China, when they used to get people to admit to crimes that they hadn't committed, right?
And they just get people and they just have to say, confess the same thing. Yeah, whatever it is, it's like a new age version of that where you put people up, especially public figures, you put them up on this thing and they have to give this false apology or admission to a kind of a tone for their sins. And then okay, they can maybe come back in the club. Otherwise, they get canceled.
That's the new term. But I just think people need to really stop giving into this. I mean, it's incredible how many, I get so many messages and emails now from people, especially in the world of entertainment, also in the world of tech and in media, who one, tell me that I'm extremely brave for being as honest and frank as I am, but then two say that, oh, they can't speak out because they're worried about losing their job or they're worried about losing this opportunity or all this kind of stuff. And it's just, it's crazy.
I mean, we're supposed to be in a free country with free speech and freedom of expression, both in the UK and in the USA. So the idea that people are essentially succumbing to a form of terrorism as far as it's terrorism, isn't it? Right? If you're making people so afraid of their repercussions to say what's on their mind or to express their genuine beliefs or whatever, because you're terrorizing them and you're making examples out of other people to show what will happen if they step out of line, that's terrorism.
It's the heads on spikes, as you go into it. Yeah, literally. Mario's head is currently on a spike outside of the TV studio. And the worst thing, you made a really good point about the fact that it dilutes down the people who are actually the problem.
And it also doesn't allow those of us who have compassion. My empathy is crippling, like absolutely crippling for almost anything. I spoke about Daniel Sloss, the comedian with this, and we said that, you know, you see those videos of dogs coming home to soldiers, like after they've been at war, and I'm just like, all in my eyes out at these things. And I can't bet.
But the problem is that if you do want to have compassion and try and understand complex situations and someone who is going through gender dysphoria, someone who has suffering with racism, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, it's like to be able to step into that room and try and understand that you also have to do all this other stuff as well. You're like, I'm gonna have to put this bag on and this bag on and this bag on. And yeah, it's not very helpful. So I think you're right.
It'll be interesting to see how many more Mario Lopez's thorough and how many more Zuby's thorough over the next five years. You know what I mean? Like that's going to be interesting. And because of the way that popular culture defines and it trickles down into defining what everybody else thinks, it's not actually going to take lots of those situations to occur to actually begin defining culture like ahead of it.
You know, a lot of those situations can be like the stone in the river that directs the flow a little bit. So one of the other things I want you to discuss is Titania McGrath. I don't know how to pronounce her name. Titania McGrath.
Titania McGrath. So I have, this is the first time that you listen to, I've managed to confirm her slash her character to come on the podcast. My goal, she's currently performing at the fringe of your at the fringe 9 p.m. every night.
I suggest that you go and see the show has had fantastic reviews already. What I wanted to do is to get the actress that plays her to sit down and to have Andrew Doyle, the man who's behind her as her publicist. And I wanted to have this back and forth. But apparently one of the agreements is that the actress won't speak in character on interviews, which is really a really good idea.
Because I mean, if people actually begin thinking that she is her, all hell will break loose. But there's a tweet that came out that is probably the best one I think I've seen her do, which is, if you only have sex with people you find attractive, you might want to ask yourself why you're such a superficial bigot. Oh gosh, I think my favorite one was that being a cis white male is an act of violence or something. I was wondering my favorite one.
One of the things that's super interesting about this is because Andrew is British, right? And also the fact that he got ousted due to like a typo from some book publishing thing. I don't know whether you saw this, but the only reason is that he never wanted to be the person that's like behind this account, right? But people that don't know what we're talking about is a fake social justice warrior account satirically going through saying these sort of things, the absolute extreme example of what you might see on Twitter got banned.
Then people are like, hang on, you can't ban this. It's a satire account. These are actually allowed under Twitter's terms of service. It's stipulated satire, etc, etc.
And due to some guy, a book publishing thing accidentally fired on some blog somewhere that it was Andrew as the author. And then everybody trickled down because he's the same guy that is behind Jonathan Pie as well. Did Jonathan Pie? It doesn't really form, right?
Yeah, yeah. So you know, apparently now it's just like all hell, let's see stuff that all hell broke loose. But yeah, the fact that he's got that understanding that new ones strikes at what I was talking about in the UK again, because again, for me, this sort of stuff like cis male and the superficial bigotry and stuff, it's not language that I hear. It isn't.
And it's interesting that you say that you have, but yeah, I absolutely can't wait to. You might be protected up there. You're in Newcastle, right? Yes.
You might actually be somewhat insulated from it up there. You think it's a bit less cosmopolitan than London, somewhere like that. It's a little bit more. Yeah, and people I know Newcastle well, and people in Newcastle are just a bit more in touch and grounded.
So it's sort of sane. Yeah, a lot of these ideas. It's a bit like how in the US, like if you go to the south of the USA or you're sort of in middle America in the Midwest, you're going to get far less of these social, you get far less social justice nonsense, right? They're not running around in Houston and most parts of Texas and Arizona and Kentucky and Alabama, right?
There's no social justice where you're there. But if you go to Portland, you go to Los Angeles, you go to New York, you go to the coastal cities, then that's where a lot more of this ideology is based. So in the UK, I mean, if you're in London or in Brighton, I was going to say, what's the wokest city in the UK? Brighton.
Brighton. Brighton. The wokest city in the UK. Easily.
No way. Easily. Yeah. I guess that.
Yeah, Brighton, easily. Yeah. Brighton's the one place where you would encounter people who do genuinely, yeah, who use this kind of language and well, you'll say something lots of the things that we've said here. They'd find extremely offensive and want us to apologize for and just start giving you a lecture on, you know, why you as a privileged cis white male should not be, you know, saying certain things or perhaps you should even be speaking to me in a certain way as a person of color and all the right, all that stuff.
Should you be speaking to you in a certain way as a person of color? I don't even, I hate that term. I don't even use it. It's just silly.
Yeah. It's really interesting. Joe Rogan recently went through a breakdown of person of color and colored person and like the fact that you can rearrange the same words in a sentence in one way is like currently accepted and in one way was accepted, but now isn't accepted. Yeah.
Yeah. It's silly. I don't use terminology of my ideological opponents, shall we say? Although I don't like to view people as opponents.
I like to just view people as people. But I guess I opposed certain ideas. Okay. I try not to, I try to separate people from ideas.
So I've encountered people who, you know, have some of these bizarre ideas and I don't agree with them on them, but as long as we can have a conversation and be decent to each other and, you know, maybe agree to disagree, maybe we'll change each other's minds on certain things from time to time, then it's all good. But I don't think it's a, yeah, there's just some ideas that I don't think are a net benefit to society. So anything that I feel is that way, then I will most likely oppose. Yeah, I understand.
So to finish off one of the things that I'll wait to ask, I appreciate that you understand this with a lot of new ones. And you are someone who, it seems kind of similar to John Peterson a little way, like the way that when the left decided to pick on him, it's like they picked on the wrong fucking guy so bad. And it's like the same with you. Like if there was someone that was going to come to the front, it was going to be someone who like, overtly could be first off class as a minority.
So you've got that card to play like whenever you want, right? You've got like the race card in your pocket, and then you've got your ability lyrically to write, to speak, to do all of these different things. You are someone who I feel is, you know, hopefully well equipped to deal with whatever the future's going to be going to be going to be a big change stuff. For some of the people that are out there, how would you suggest that they go about viewing the world, tools or tactics with regards to skepticism or conduct or however you think, have you got some advice for people about how they navigate the next sort of two years, five years?
Wow. Well, you mentioned John Peterson. So I'll take one of his rules, which is tell the truth, or at least don't lie. I think that's important.
I'm really big on authenticity. And I always have been both in my music and outside of it, you know, just trying to be honest and not say things that maybe are beneficial or might seem expedient in the short term, but in the long term are likely to do your damage or get you caught in some sort of web of lies. So just being honest. And then, and then, yeah, that goes further to sort of standing your ground, standing your ground, but also being not, not as in digging yourself in on an idea and not allowing other people to challenge it.
No, no, no, like do the opposite of that, get outside of your echo chamber. But don't be afraid, don't crumble at the first question, right? If someone challenges something or someone wants you to apologize for something that you're not sorry for, then you don't have to apologize. And it would be an empty apology anyway, if I do something, and I'm not sorry about it, and I'm forced into some kind of apology, then I'm still not sorry about it.
It's just, you're just saying words. Yeah, I said the words. But that doesn't really mean anything. And then beyond that, I guess just being, being trying to be open minded and talk to different people of different viewpoints, and you know, if you've got something that you are, or and you know, just be willing to learn and be willing to have your mind changed.
It's the reason any of us know anything is because we've been wrong in the past. Okay, pretty much everything you know is because you are wrong at some point. So if you are never wrong, or you feel like you're never wrong, you're probably not learning anymore. Probably not dating the OS appropriately.
Exactly, exactly. Every day you should be being wrong about something almost every day. Nothing catastrophic, right? But yeah, you should be, oh, okay, someone, I say something and then you're like, oh, no, actually, this is the data or these are the facts or have you thought this, you know, if I'm being intellectually honest, if it's a better argument or it's a fact that goes against what I believe it's, oh, okay, no, you're right.
And then I incorporate that into my thing. And then hopefully, next time you have a conversation with the next person, you're a little bit wiser, and that continues to happen. And I kind of look forward to one, it's one reason I'm not so worried about getting older is like, I look forward to seeing just how much I'll know. And the whole kind of person I'll be in 10 years and 15 years and 20 years, because that's when yeah, that's when it should all start peaking.
And I think that's why someone like Jordan Peterson has rise has just been crazy because it's really interesting. I mean, it's rare for someone to become world famous in their mid 50s, isn't it? But it's almost, but you were talking about that, that striking. And it's like he's been building up and building up and building up and then he's sort of in the century of recreation.
Literally. And then when the spotlight came on him, it was like, oh my god, this is you fools. This isn't even my final form. Yeah, literally, like, whoa, like this guy's a Phoenix to sort of like, whoa, like, absolutely, this guy's a force, you know, but had the spotlight been on him maybe 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, it wouldn't have been, he wouldn't have formulated his ideas and been able to articulate them in the way that he does, which is very masterful.
I went to see him live last year and it was really interesting. It's really interesting. What did you see? Oxford.
Oh, cool. I saw the Manchester show. Manchester show was fantastic as well. Yeah, yeah, and it's really interesting, because it's, yeah, it's weird.
He's touring like a rock star just doing these talks. Shout out to him. Like, things that you could not pay me to go, and you couldn't have paid me to go and learn about that 15 years ago. And now I'm like, I'm handing my pocket to you.
Yeah, it's interesting. And you know, it's so tropey now to talk about John Peterson, but being precise with your speech, telling the truth, being friends with people that want the best for you, all of those sort of things, they're fantastic rules to live by. Yeah, I really genuinely, genuinely do hope that there is a John Peterson future ahead for you, man. I think that you, you know, tentatively, I hope that you have the skills to navigate the space and to be a really, a really interesting, balancing voice going forward.
Obviously, we need to get another 15 kilos on your squat. Once we've done that, you know, I really do think that there'll be a lot of, a lot of world that you feed for you to kind of play around with. And I genuinely, I'm super excited to see what the next, the next year, sort of particularly for yourself, has in store and very, feeling very fortunate to hopefully be a part of that genesis process and kind of help you along the way as well. I appreciate that Chris.
Thank you very much, man. Today's been awesome. Anybody who wants to find out anymore, get at Zubi Music on Twitter? Where else can they go?
Is there website? Anything else? Yeah, sure. So I'm on Twitter at Zubi Music, same handle on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook as well, at zubi music.
And my website is zubi music.com. I've also got a merchandise website where you can get my music and merch, which is teamzubi.com. Fantastic. All links to everything that we've spoken about will be in the show notes below.
If you've got any comments or any feedback about today, obviously, it's quite a new one. It's an interesting conversation. The comments are always open or at Chris as well, as you follow me. But for now, Zubi, man, thank you so much.
Good luck with Joe when you're out in the States and I'll catch you next time. Thanks for all. Appreciate it. Have a good evening.