Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby is available wherever you pod – and check out the latest ep’s video version (below). It’s about hacks, clapter, and politics…

How low can we go?

Man, we’re gonna see that bloodied-but-defiant Trump clip more than the planes crashing into the towers, aren’t we?

I’ve never seen someone so excited to get shot. It was like he was gifted a perfect TV moment and immediately knew/seized it. The raised fist. The “Fight!” chant. The “get my shoes so they don’t see I’m wearing lifts.”

He truly is a primal media beast who’s channelled the lessons of the three Mc’s that understood American appetites best: Marshall McLuhan, Vince McMahon, and Ronald McDonald. Combine TV, kayfabe, and clown makeup and Americans will eat that slop up. Ratings, baby. Ratings.

By the way, will there ever be a doctor who confirms he got shot in the ear? Or are we just supposed to take his word for it? I’m no conspiracy theorist, but–

[Gets hit by poison dart]

Anyway, we now have pinchable cheeked V.P.J.D., who gives off strong "golf clubs on the subway" vibes. (My NYC peeps know what I mean.)

Freak show

It’s really been some month for Trump…

1. Biden's incompetent debate performance

2. Supreme court ruling gives Presidents immunity

3. Survives assassination attempt, pumps fist

4. "Judge Dismisses Classified Documents Case"

…which means Project 2025 is coming soon. In case you haven’t read up on it, this will entail the following:

1. Proud Boys replace Secret Service

2. Judge Aileen Cannon appointed to Supreme Court

3. Statue of Trump’s raised fist moment added to the Mall

And now we need to “lower the temperature on political violence.” At least that’s what politicians keep saying on the same social media platforms that, y’know, profit from and incentivize misinformation, rage, and tribalism.

I get it, though. Saying Trump is going to be a dictator is not lowering the temperature. So I really hope Trump stops saying it.

Apparently the shooter is a Republican who donated to a liberal group. Fits into my theory that the problem is not the extreme right/left, it's the extremely online. Social media is a freak show. Hang out there too much and you wind up thinking the world is full of bearded ladies and sword swallowers.

Revenge of the VC’s

Speaking of social media freaks, on the same day Elon and his PayPal posse got their pet VP pick, Musk announced he’ll give $45 million a month to a pro-Trump super PAC.

Elon Musk called the [VP] decision a “great choice” and said the lineup “resounds with victory” on X, the social platform he owns. David Sacks, an investor and Trump supporter scheduled to speak at the GOP convention on Monday night, called Vance an “American patriot” in a post.

And at Founders Fund, a venture capital firm backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, partner Delian Asparouhov summed up the mood of many in his orbit, posting: “IT’S JD VANCE. WE HAVE A FORMER TECH VC IN THE WHITE HOUSE. GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH BABY.”

If Musk, Sacks, and Thiel agree on something:

I mean, maybe the donation timing is a coincidence, but–

[Gets hit by another poison dart]

Unity

So just how do we unify the country? Well, there's one thing Americans of both parties overwhelmingly agree on: Joe Biden is too old to be President.

Heck, the man has somehow been balding-yet-not-bald for over 50 years. How is that even possible?

His interviews aren’t helping. Every time Biden talks, it’s like watching an open mic comedian who’s forced to do an hour and clearly doesn’t have the material for it. The angrier he gets, the more it just smells like fear.

And even when he does strike back, it’s so late that it just winds up giving, "Well, the Jerk Store called and they're running out of you."

Biden has become the thing he supposedly hates: an angry, egomaniacal bully blaming everything on "the elites" and “the media” while surrounded by lackeys, enablers, and yes men.

Unhope

Let’s be real: Americans can't handle death, aging, or illness. We outsource elder care and stick old folks in homes so we don't have to deal. The idea that a candidate that constantly evokes Father Time can win is ludicrous. Whenever voters see Biden, they subconsciously think the OPPOSITE of hope and change.

And now our last hope is Nancy Pelosi and her team of ancient Avengers tell him to drop out. "When will the 84 year old tell the 81 year old he's too old for the job?" kinda answers itself.

I keep thinking about those propping him up. Will they take any responsibility when he gets shellacked? Of course not. They’ll just pop up on MSNBC and get cushy lobbying jobs while the rest of try to figure out how to FedEx abortion pills without getting arrested.

Weirdly, these are the same folks who led us to believe Trump is a giant threat to democracy. But their current ho hum approach makes me think maybe all that hysteria was hyperbole. Like, if it'll save the country, make the ticket Liz Cheney and Mayor Pete and let's roll, right? But if they won't even tell an old man it's time to bow out gracefully, it feels like we’re just choosing between Mint Chocolate Chip and Cherry Garcia.

Ya know what Trump would hate the most? If 1) Biden dropped out during this week’s GOP convention, 2) the Dems did an Apprentice-like battle for the nom over the next month, and 3) eventually made Gavin Newsom ("straight out of central casting") the candidate at their convention.

I mean, a guy can drea–

[Gets hit by another poison dart.]

Live

Some upcoming shows: July 20 in Boston and August 10 in Victoria (BC). Ticket info. Might add a Seattle date too/stay tuned.

And in NYC, I’m at Comedy Cellar every Tuesday night for HOT SOUP and at NY Comedy Club (East Village) every Wednesday night for GOOD EGGS.

Quickies

🎯 The big reveal of the 21st century is supplements are the ideal way to monetize idiocy.

🎯 I can’t believe people spend so much time arguing with complete strangers online. Like, c’mon, don’t you have families? Argue with them!

🎯 Was hoping I’d turn into a silver fox, but it’s trending more toward rusty porcupine.

🎯 Weird how when a skinny person believes they’re fat, we say it’s body dysmorphia. Yet when a fat person believes they’re skinny, we say, “Lizzo’s so brave.”

🎯 The Bear is Kitchen Requiem for a Dream.

🎯 “No war has ever been taught between two women-led countries.” Ah, but just imagine how passive aggressive that war would be: “I could never govern like that...but I love how you just, like, go for it.”

🎯 Our society can't handle straight talk about the pandemic at all and it's BIZARRE. No art about it. No reckoning with what it did to kids. Just whistling past the graveyard. That's how you know it's not really over yet. If we can't even look it in the eyes, it's still happening.

🎯 Whenever I’m talking to a wellness person, I just make sure to drop “acai” into the conversation as much as possible. What kind of yoga do I do? Acai. Who is my favorite DJ? Acai. What's my fave movie line? Yippee-ki-y-acai, motherf–r!

🎯 Male pattern baldness goes front to back. But I went bald the opposite way. Does that mean I have beta male pattern baldness?

🎯 Love it when people say, “I’m between jobs.” Related: I’m not crazy, I’m just between therapists.

🎯 When you start out meditating, you think it's about nothingness. Eventually, you realize that’s wrong. It's actually about constantly letting go of somethingness.

🎯 The emphasis on merch nowadays is revolting. I'm so glad Hemingway wasn't hawking pens at the end of each chapter and John Lennon never tried to sell us an energy drink.

🎯 Women will call men gross for following butt models on Instagram. Yet meanwhile, they're following some rando Mormom mom posting about her six kids, which feels way creepier.

🎯 I can’t believe people spend so much time arguing with complete strangers online. Like, c’mon, don’t you have families? Argue with them!

🎯 I'm raw dogging this flight *

* I'm having unprotected sex with every passenger

Comedy

🃏 Get jokes on my social media: Instagram – TikTok – Threads – X – Substack.

🃏 Watch my standup at YouTube.

🃏 My other newsletter is Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian. It’s all about standup.

5-spotted

🗯️ Digging this handmade graphics approach as the antidote to AI: The Guardian creative team is making all its election artwork by hand.

The rise in disinformation and fakery cemented the idea to do the opposite and lean into the craft of doing things for real.

🗯️ Why does it feel like everyone is creating “dog food” just for the sake of it? More slop for the void:

This content void is the real driver of all of this. When, in the early 2010s, sites like Facebook and YouTube began to morph from simple social networks and user-generated content platforms into genuine competitors of movies, TV, record labels, and news networks, the main problem they had to solve was having stuff people wanted to look at more than traditional media. To solve this problem, each app created its own algorithm, its own set of standards, its own incentives, and its own metrics to determine if users were meeting them successfully. And by the 2020s, not only did they successfully destabilize pop culture, they also offloaded their fear of the content void onto all of us. Now we’re the ones worrying if we’re posting enough. The malls convinced the shoppers to work there for free.

🗯️ The line between authenticity and exposition is thin.

A word that once meant “genuine” and “real” is now shrouded with a façade and fueled by performance.

Somehow, “authentic,” now translates to: storytelling or self-representation that is based on re-enactments of one’s darkest times.

What was once an invitation to take off our masks, break the fourth wall, and connect with the audience, is now a lavishly costumed and scripted performance.

🗯️ Anu Atluru on things that scale:

I have a theory that chasing things that scale makes you need therapy, and the therapy is pursuing things that can’t scale. I once wrote that every entrepreneur’s dream is to succeed at building an impossibly hard business and then finally open a local coffee shop to be happy.

🗯️ Yancey Strickler on celebrating smallness.

Kurt Cobain once reminisced that if he could do it all over again, he would go back to those moments before they became big. When they were touring in a van and they could feel things starting to happen for them. That was the most gratifying moment in his memory. If he had his choice, they would have stayed there forever.

Thanks for reading.

-Matt