Yesterday was like The Day The Music Died but for cable news (and also, no one really cares). I’ve got my fingers crossed we're about to get an Odd Couple reboot starring Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon. Imagine the wacky hijinx!

I still can’t believe the “Jesus ❤️ Guns” crowd ever fell hard for a spray tanned, bow-tied, educated at a boarding school in Switzerland guy who [checks notes] hates the elites? His real name: Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson. Because nothing says “not elite” like the middle name Swanson.

Seriously, where do these right wingers think FOX broadcasters go when they leave their studio in Times Square? Hint: They ain’t hopping on a pontoon boat to go alligator wrestling. It’s just con after con after con with these “men of the people.”

Alas, FOX haters think this is some kinda victory. But c’mon, we’ve been here before. It’s silly to think detuckering is some kinda detox that solves anything. Before him, the problem was Hannity. And before that, it was O'Reilly. And don’t forget the shenanigans of past boogeycasters Megyn Kelly and Glenn Beck.

It's time we stop fooling ourselves: It ain’t the mouthpiece, it’s the time slot. The person on camera is just a cog. The platform is what matters. They'll plug in the next commander of hate to the conn and the rage ship will sail on. And American grandpas will keep on watching as they curse the immigrants who clean their bedpans.

Something that whole Fox News case revealed: The truth is a terrible business model.

I don’t think there’s any version of this trial that would have changed Fox’s behavior in any real and meaningful way. It’s just too big a business for them. The notion that they would get crosswise with their audience is something, we now know because of this lawsuit, they’re afraid of doing. And they don’t see any business model in becoming a moderate, centrist, conservative network or in becoming a network that levels with its audience…

This settlement is going to dent Fox, but it’s not going to bankrupt it. It still has billions and billions of dollars. The way that Fox has settled this case shows us that that’s a cost that they’re perfectly acceptable writing down.

As always, follow the money. What’s the reason for FOX to be honest? Journalism? That horse left the barn a long time ago. Now the right move is to give the people what they want: Throw incendiary opinions at ‘em, make crap up, confirm that bias, and stroke that ego. Don’t hate the network, hate the predatory capitalist system that makes putting sweaty Rudy on the air the right move.

In truth, we long for a retro news landscape that was artificially propped up. When there were just three networks, news was a loss leader. We could have a Walter Cronkite because CBS didn’t need the news division to make a profit. Now, every fraction of a rating point counts.

Meanwhile, newspapers were buoyed by classified ads, until Craigslist came along and pulled the rug out from all that. Now that journalism is left to fend for itself, it’s withering away. It’s romantic to think revenue comes from All The President’s Men reporting, but actually it’s coming (if at all) from recipes and Wordle.

“But what about Substack’s model?” It’s great for personal/niche stuff, but real reporting? I dunno. Good luck finding a Substacker willing to tell all their paying subscribers they’re a bunch of dumb schmucks. The incentives are all toward congratulating the choir for “getting it.” (Except you, dear reader. Subscribers here truly do “get it.” You are most certainly NOT a schm– ugh, moving on...)

It’s everywhere too. Why would you take a nuanced, middle-of-the-road stance when you see all your edgy, hot-taking peers gaming the algorithm with a bunch of bullsh*t? No one wants to swim upstream and lose money doing it.

So now we’re left with just the coals of truth. And each day, we pour more deep fakes, Photoshopped portraits, and Drake singing The Weeknd tunes atop the embers. Good luck sussing out real from fake in the future. The truth is now negotiable. At least, that’s what ChatGPT just told me.

Quickies

🎯 Every private karaoke room is an escape room to me.

🎯 Crazy how much we use the phrase whack-a-mole considering how little anyone ever played the actual game.

🎯 Lyft ride…a true story!
Me: Can you turn the volume up?
[He turns it up. It’s Christian music with Jesus lyrics.]
Me: Oh, you can turn it down.
[He locks doors.]
[I put in headphones and play “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode.]

🎯 Crazy that content now needs to be either 15 seconds or 3.5 hours and anything in between gets lost. Anyway, this will probably be the topic of a new 16 hour documentary airing on Showtime.

🎯 We fixate too much on “the one right way” when nature shows us that sometimes the tide goes in, other times out. It's all about timing.

🎯 Paying for a blue check is like a high schooler paying for a varsity jacket. The entire value of the thing is based on earning it, not paying for it.

🎯 Re: Elon and the blue checks, it's the layers for me. Like, imagine overpaying for something by $20B and then having your minions attack people for not spending $8/mo on a badge that you made worthless by removing the reason it ever had any value in the first place. Mindblowing stuff.

🎯 Nothing says business and finance like, um, LSD?

🎯 Bitcoin bros out here rooting for the total collapse of the financial system like the guy who puts his chips on "Don't Pass" at the craps table.

🎯 Too much talk about artificial intelligence, not enough about genuine wisdom.

🎯 Tech has spread a prison gang mentality throughout society. It’s tribal warfare at all times. All this "progress" is somehow just making us more primal.

🎯 Greatest mic drop in history was Lauryn Hill releasing that Miseducation album and walking the f– away.

🎯 I speak truth to algorithm. (And then I get shadowbanned.)

🎯 When I meditate, I'm supposed to listen to the sounds around me. I always hear two things off in the distance: ambulance sirens and construction noises. Lesson learned. We are constantly being destroyed and rebuilt at the same time.

Support

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Also: You can hire me to do writing/video work for you! I typically work with tech companies but I’m open to whatever. Funny stuff, thought leadership pieces, explainer videos, etc. Hit reply or email me at mattruby@hey.com and I’ll tell ya more.

A tale of two events

Event insurance for chamber music vs. hip hop:

Interesting. And what if you do hip hop chamber music? Hmm.

Comedy

😈 I post clips of my standup and more at Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

😈 Check out my other newsletter “Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian” – recent posts discuss how Mel Brooks got started as a pool tummler and the Five Levels of Drinking (and/or 💩ing on a plane).

😈 Check out these super comments on my latest standup special/documentary, “Substance.”

5-spotted

🗯 On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs. David Graeber argues the more obviously one's work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it.

What would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it's obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) Yet apart from a handful of well-touted exceptions (doctors), the rule holds surprisingly well.

🗯 Jules Evans discusses the price of freedom in The Long Walk to Community.

We are not, and should not try to be, invincible Stoic supermen, safe in our lonely fortresses of solitude. We need each other. We need to admit this need, and embrace it. In modern liberal society, we have struggled for centuries to wall off the individual from the interference of church, state, and community. We have won our individual freedom and privacy, but at the cost of terrible loneliness. We place a great emphasis on the free, private, autonomous individual. If we hurt, we hurt in private. 

🗯 Emma Camp: Why I Am More and More Ambivalent About My Autism Diagnosis.

The attraction of a flattened label is the way it provides meaning to common insecurities. Disorganization can be A.D.H.D.; social ineptitude can be autism. This approach provides quick relief from many of the anxieties central to teenage and young adult life… 

This brand of identity politics creates a perverse incentive to collect as many “disadvantaged” boxes as possible. For those who might otherwise have little cachet under this politics, an identity-defining mental health label offers a claim to oppression. What was once a dry medical label is now what makes one worthy.

But mental health diagnoses, along with most other categories up for examination under our identity politics, are accidents of birth. To make them central features of our identities is to focus on the things we can’t control ourselves — an approach that is ultimately disempowering.

🗯 Succession is overwhelmingly white. Is that ok? Richard Hanania and Rob Henderson discuss artificial diversity:

I know they get away with it in part because the main characters are supposed to be conservatives and therefore bad people, but still, it’s quite striking and an unusual artistic choice. A bunch of white people in a room making big decisions is still a very normal thing in real life, but not on TV. I find that artificial diversity is often a distraction, as I imagine producers always navigating their way through a minefield or trying to make an ideological point. Here, you can simply sit back and enjoy the characters and situations for what they are. I don’t necessarily want artificial homogeneity in art either, but artificial diversity is the norm and it unquestionably subtracts from most shows and movies. Succession should be given credit for accurately representing what an elite conservative institution actually looks like.

🗯 Derek Sivers: When you think something nice about someone, you should tell them.

People don’t hear enough compliments…

As soon as I feel the feeling of appreciation, I flip over to my email app, tap tap tap send, and get back to what I was doing.

There really is no better use of my time, or yours.

Thanks for reading.

-Matt

P.S. Check out my podcast: Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby. This week’s ep is one of my faves so far. Classic Ruby rant stuff: Ep 14 // Screens, filters, and the land of lies.