The defining trait of this era is the astounding ability of everyone in every group to think that, somehow, they are the victim. The richest man in the world is blaming the activists, the former President is blaming the deep state, Kyrie and Kanye are blaming the Jews, and everyone else is prattling on about some version of systemic systemicism. Now, the buck stops anywhere but here and victimhood is the new currency.

Plus, everyone is 100% convinced they’re in the right. No matter how ridiculous your worldview, you have a bunch of folks saying you’re correct – especially if you’re famous or wealthy. Anyone with heat has a bunch of d*ckriders in the comments (and IRL hangers on) +1ing whatever asinine p.o.v. they spew. Why would they ever think they’re wrong?

It’s the same way every woman has a group chat with a bunch of supportive girlfriends calling her a “queen.” Sorry, but not everyone can be a queen. That’s not how royalty works. No wonder Queen Elizabeth checked out; she was probably sick of being compared to a bunch of influencers who ace smokey eye tutorials.

Our fakakta educational system has come home to roost. We’re a bunch of easily conned dopes who have decided the truth is negotiable. Just make it entertaining, that’s all. We’ve already voted and we’ve elected kayfabe over reality. We want Macho Man Savage and steel cages as opposed to singlets and headgear. Our politics is a bunch of dudes who went to Harvard trying their best to pretend they didn't go to Harvard:

"I don't say crudité, I shoot elk!"
"Oh yeah? Well, I don't shoot elk. I choke 'em with my bare hands – while also lassoing immigrants."

Oh, the crudity.

Fine, I admit it. I’m a snob. Doesn’t anyone have the balls to stand up for elitism, intelligence, books, and the truth anymore? I’m sick of our entire society racing to the bottom because white working class voters in western Pennsylvania need to be assuaged they’re not stuck in the past. And re: “working class,” these people always seem to be hanging out in diners at 11am on weekdays so how hard are they really working?

The inmates are running the election – or will soon. Somehow, the insane people have become the most highly motivated among us. We’ve never had that before. The dimwits used to wear overalls and ask us to tell ‘em about the rabbits. Now, they wear sweater vests and want to overthrow their local school board. “I don’t know a single person who voted for Biden so the election must have been stolen,” they argue. Well, I don’t know a single person who watches NASCAR so I guess NASCAR must not exist.

It’s all so embarrassing. A bunch of clowns who insist America is exceptional are sacrificing the one thing that actually made us exceptional. It’s the democracy, stupid. At least this election cycle has yielded one smart idea: I now close every text exchange with "STOP2end".

Of course it’s no coincidence it all started going to hell once we plugged in to social media 24/7. And just when you thought that couldn’t get any worse, along came Elon Musk. Flailing Elon is learning the hard way that going to Mars is simpler than building a profitable content business. “It’s not like it’s rocket science.” True, it’s harder.

I don’t know how to save Twitter, but I’m pretty sure the right way to run a company ain’t this hair-on-fire approach where you race to implement new features within a week, fire employees and then try to hire them back the next day, pseudo-pivot to porn, and just generally act like a Chief Chaos Officer while antagonizing half your customer base.

No wonder advertisers are running for the exits. “It was the activists,” claims Musk. C’mon. Advertisers are fundamentally opposed to unrestricted free speech because it means their brand winds up appearing next to a bunch of toxic crap they don't want to be associated with. Bottom line: You can have a speech free-for-all or you can have an ad revenue model, but you can't have both.

So far all that’s changed is users can buy a blue check for a monthly fee. But blue checks were desirable because they proved a user was verified. Now anyone can get one; so users are supposed to pony up $8/month for a thing that doesn't mean the thing that made it worth anything.

How does this solve anything? Is it supposed to prevent the platform from being the toxic cesspool it is now? Because a**holes have money too. On the plus side, the guy who oversees content moderation there said 15% of his group was laid off, versus about 50% companywide. So I guess Twitter will only get 15% worse instead of 50%. Huzzah?

Meanwhile, Elon keeps making dumb middle school jokes like “What do you call someone who is a master at baiting?” Jesus, man. Bravo to Bezos for shutting the *#&$! up at least. Actually, I’m starting to like Musk’s asinine "jokes" because they force people to reconsider the tenuous connection between wealth and intelligence. Rich people are good at getting rich. That is a specific skillset that correlates to luck, heredity, and criminality as much as it does to intelligence.

Vooza @voozahq

re: elon, tried to warn ya

9:28 PM ∙ Nov 7, 2022

It all made this message from the Substack CEO this week feel refreshing: "The truth is we’re capitalists like the other guys—but the way we make money is different. We make money only when you do, which means we are literally invested in your success. What’s more, you can leave at any time." More of this, please. Otherwise, an infinite scroll ad model that requires attention fracking will be the downfall of us all.

And, sigh, I guess we need to talk about the Jews because, well, everyone else keeps talking about us. I’m not a very devout one; bring me to a synagogue and I’ll be all, “Baruch atah adonai, um, hakuna matata challah Vietnam.” Still, when I see media types freely using phrases like "the Nets’ Jewish Season Ticket Holders," it gives me the heebee jeebies (the Hebrew jeebies?).

“I cannot be antisemitic if I know where I come from,” said Kyrie Irving. Ugh. Folks like Kyrie seem to be especially hung up on the word semitic. I’ve never heard a Jew call themselves a semite though. Feels like a real distraction. Let’s stop bickering about whether someone is “anti-semitic” and start getting to the real question: Do you hate Jews or nah? That’s all I really wanna know. Guess you could say I’m anti-semantics.

At least there’s one good thing about Kyrie: He can't blame the "globalists" since he thinks the world is flat. You can’t blame the globalists when you don’t even believe there’s a globe.

Kyrie is emblematic of a bigger problem: People doing their learning via YouTube. The death of reading has led to the democratization of idiocy. Everyone is doing their research by watching some guy who didn’t do any research. The truth is debatable. And even if someone’s clearly wrong, there’s still a bunch of whataboutism because no one can stand to see “one of theirs” get attacked. On Kyrie: But what about Amazon hosting the doc? On Pelosi: But what about Scalise getting shot? On Jan. 6: But what about the looters the previous summer? YES. THOSE THINGS ARE BAD TOO. People need to stop assuming everyone is part of their dumbass tribal warfare cosplay shtick. Some of us contain multitudes and hate BS no matter which direction it comes from.

Enough of the dumb trending topics du jour. Next week, I’ll return to being a beacon of light and a river to my people. (That’s how blowhards cover up their narcissism, right?)

However, I’d like for you to vote. It could be the last time it actually matters. And for those who think “both sides are equally bad,” FOH. I get it, many hate woke crap, cancel culture, and inflation. Fine. But anyone who believes a cabal of pedos is running a sex trafficking ring out of a pizza parlor and the deep state stole the election is a goddamn moron. Sorry that gas is pricey, but it ain’t worth surrendering our beacon on the hill to a circus from the gutter.

Quickies

🎯 "Online dating sucks." To sum up our society, people are upset that trying to find your soul mate while taking a dump isn't working out.

🎯 Sex recession? OK, but it's strange to pair sex stuff with economic terms. Like it'd be weird to turn on the news and hear, "There was a drop in the consumer blow job index this month." That said, I admit Bear Market totally sounds like a gay bar.

🎯 Seen a lotta married couples and I'm pretty sure we can rebrand "cuck" as "guy who comes over and pays attention to your wife" and turn it from a bug into a feature.

Vooza @voozahq

so i guess the term "quiet quitting," um, quit quietly

4:54 PM ∙ Nov 3, 2022

🎯 Two devils diverged in a wood, and I—
I picked the sad one 👿 instead of the happy one 😈,
And that has made all the difference.
It made me realize I need glasses.

🎯 The subtext of "I'm offended" is often "I prefer lies."

🎯 74 degrees in November in NYC:

Comedy

😈 I post brief comedy clips on the regular at Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

😈 Tonight I’m in NOLA. Thanksgiving weekend I’m in PA.

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

I'm headlining @HellYesFest in NOLA on Tuesday (11/8) and there are FREE Legal THC Gummies for the audience! Laissez les bon gummies rouler. 🧸 buff.ly/3U0GZgN

buff.lyHELL YES FEST presents: Matt Ruby (FREE Legal THC Gummies for the audience)New York City comedian as seen on Sirius XM, Comedy Central, MTV, CNN, NBC, and FOX...

7:36 PM ∙ Nov 2, 2022

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

Doing two shows in Hershey, PA on Nov 26. My one man show on mindfulness and then straight up standup. Come give me a Hershey Kiss. Misguided Meditation buff.ly/3T7L0i4 Comedy Night at The Vineyard at Hershey

buff.lyComedy Night at The Vineyard at HersheyReady to Laugh?...

5:14 PM ∙ Nov 6, 2022

😈 Recap of my Q&A at Overit, a digital marketing agency:

Caitlin Nicholson @SMMProfesh

ICYMI: The team at @overit interviewed @mattruby to get his insights on how brands can be disruptive in their industries. Watch the interview📹and read some takeaways 👉 overit.com/blog/matt-ruby…

overit.comMatt Ruby Gets Overit: Key Takeaways and Actionable Advice - OveritOverit invited Matt Ruby to our studio for some laughs as well as some fantastic business and creative insights....

6:21 PM ∙ Nov 2, 2022

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1Like1Retweet

Want me to speak/perform at your venue, company, or conference? Let’s talk.

5-spotted

🗯 Love it when the mask drops and the real Seinfeld comes out. Watch his incredulous reaction when Larry King asks if Seinfeld was cancelled: “You’re not aware of this?”

Jimmy Traina @JimmyTraina

It was 15 years ago today, Nov. 1, 2007, that Jerry Seinfeld gave us one of the greatest moments in talk show history.

6:40 PM ∙ Nov 1, 2022

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49,893Likes4,010Retweets

🗯 What motivates people to join mass movements? Eric Hoffer on the vanity of the selfless.

The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

🗯 Tim Kreider explores a positive end game scenario for MAGA fanatics.

What to do about all those true believers—our coworkers, neighbors, relatives—who eagerly gulped down whatever Fox excreted, who worshipped an obvious con man like some sadistic toddler-god? Forgiving them necessarily means regarding them with a kind of condescension—as too gullible and dumb to be treated as adults to be held responsible for their own decisions. Maybe we need to treat them like patients, the same way we’d treat kids we have to take to the doctor, or pets to the vet; because they’re frightened and don’t know what’s good for them and will reflexively fight it, we just have to gently force-feed them universal health care, a living wage, progressive taxation, debt forgiveness. They’ll never know what we’ve done for them, or appreciate it, but maybe, eventually, without ever grasping the causality, they’ll realize they feel better, and forget their crazy fantasies.

🗯 We maximize too much. Jason Fried on what you get by leaving some money on the table.

I get how it works. I just don’t care. I’m not interested in squeezing something so tight that I get every last drop. I don’t want, need, or care about every last drop…I don’t mind leaving some water in the cloth, some drips in the glass, some money on the table. I like knowing there’s headroom. 

🗯 “What’s that song mean?” is a bad question, according to Bob Dylan.

Sometimes people ask songwriters what a song means, not realizing if they had more words to explain it they would've used them in the song.

And here’s him bitching about how modern songs have no philosophy.

That’s the problem with a lot of things these days. Everything is too full now; we are spoon-fed everything. All songs are about one thing and one thing specifically, there is no shading, no nuance, no mystery. Perhaps this is why music is not a place where people put their dreams at the moment; dreams suffocate in these airline environs.

Viva mystery!

See ya on the other side.

-Matt