2023 RECAP! (re-uploaded)

🎵 Hello and welcome to the final Base News Network episode, what? Episode of the year, 2023. Don't get our haters excited. Don't get the haters excited. I'm Sophie, a.k.a. Jonah Varka, and I'm here with the wonderful Kayo, a.k.a. Punk Revolution. Now say hi, Kayo. Hi. Today, we are doing a 2023 recap. And we've each independently pulled together five stories that we are just, we just really want to talk about. They might not necessarily be the most significant stories of the year, but they're ones that we want to talk about again and just sort of highlight and ones we kind of think represent the year. A reflection on the year, some of the most based stories, fun stories, sad stories, just stories. We're storytellers. We're storytellers. Welcome to the Base News Network podcast. Purr. All right. So we've decided, Kayo, you're going to go first with your very first story. Okay. And by the way, for the listeners, Sophie and I have not shared our list with each other yet. So there might be. There might be some duplicates, but that's okay. That'll be part of the fun. So my fifth, number five on my list is the Lizzo Banana Scandal. Oh, my God. I completely forgot about that. Yeah. See, this is why we're doing this episode. It's because this was a crazy year. We got to soak it in. So the Lizzo Banana episode, I feel like it was one of those things that probably, probably our brains have all collectively just erased from our memories because it was really weird. The serious side of the story was that Lizzo's employees, her backup dancers, I believe it was, they put together like a lawsuit claiming that Lizzo's work environment was a hostile work environment with details about fights and just very unpleasant work. And then I think the headline that everyone remembers was, allegedly, Lizzo and her dancers went out to a banana-themed strip club or something like that in Amsterdam and was encouraging her dancers to eat the banana. Eat the banana. Eat the banana out of the vagina. Okay. All right. Yes. There you go. That's what I said. Well, that's the news. That's the news. So one thing, though, I have to say is, so remember when we did this episode, Sophie, we did like a lot of deep diving in and out of reading through. You did a great job of reading. Thank you. I had the whole. The details. I had the lawsuit pulled up. I had the whole. You had the lawsuit pulled up. The PDF up. You had a whole PDF. And. So there's a couple of things. One, I remember the story being a bit. I think we, I think everyone kind of left the story off feeling a little bit ambiguous about it because there are more. There was one like little clip of, of the, the dancers being interviewed that went viral that the, the, the people, the dancers just didn't sound very persuasive. Like they, like that, the, the work environment was all that bad. I don't remember, but I just, I remember it's just, you know, it's one of those, it's, it's one of those things. It felt like a little bit, okay, maybe Liz is not the best boss, but is it quite into like illegal territory? Not sure. I mean, I think reading through the document, there were some items that seemed dubious. And I also was like following it through this, I believe YouTuber who is a actual lawyer. And she was kind of saying there's some. There's some challenging parts of it to prove, but the part about the, where one, someone's phone was seized for recording something and they were sort of like trapped in a room until they gave, like deleted it or something like that. That was that she says that that is a pretty solid case of false imprisonment. So, yeah, I don't even know what's going on with this trial right now. I just did. I just did a quick Google. I don't think it's in. You know what I mean? Lawsuit. No, it's not. It's just the latest thing. And this, these are articles that came out just today about it were just headlines that say Lizzo claims designers. Oh, is there a designer harassed? Is there another? It was the dancers, but perhaps more people are involved now. Okay. So it seems like there are more cases. Okay. So this, I did not do. Okay. I should have Googled this before the episode. Apparently now there's more lawsuits coming to to to Lizzo for making a bad work environment. Now from the designer. So we've got a designer and some dancers now are all kind of hopping. Okay. So that's, so that's the, that's the update that we have. Actually, you know what? This is breaking news. This was supposed to be reflecting on an early throughout the year, but we actually do have some breaking news here, which is that Lizzo. Lizzo is being sued by the designer as well for the, for harassment or something like that. So that's where things stand with that. You're welcome. I did a Google, I did a Google search. All right. Okay. So what's your number five, Sophie? Um, so my number five is Ozempic. Um, yeah. So trigger warning for discussions of weight. Just a heads up. I'm not going to get into anything. Bad or anything like that. I just, you know, I want to be safe. Um, so Ozempic and other similar drugs are being hailed as miracle drugs by a lot of people. And, um, what is, is, is, um, essentially a weight loss drug that, um, is being used to treat diabetes. Um, but it also includes. You know, it has been used in general to, to lose weight. And it also has benefits for, um, heart issues or, and as, as well as, um, uh, addiction and stuff like that. So, um, it's a miracle drug. Um, well, that's, well, the thing is, is that there's been for forever decades, there's been like diet pills and stuff like that, that sometimes don't do anything or horrible for you and all this. And that, and the Ozempic stuff, the Ozempic and, uh, Wagovi, they're all kind of the same thing actually works really, really, really well to help people lose like a lot of weight very seamlessly and with very minimal side effects. So it's kind of like a miracle drug. And as Sophie kind of mentioned in there, there's also signs that could be helpful for helping people with like drug addiction and alcoholism and stuff like that too. So. More to come on that, but. Well, the main reason I think this is so significant and as I do think that I think, I mean, I guess we'll have to wait and see, but I'm, I'm hoping that this will have a great impact on our overall health. Um, in general, just like a collect, the collective health of the U S or in abroad. Um, not because like, I don't want to say that like being fat or being at a certain weight isn't. Inherently bad or it's not bad or unhealthy, but there are certainly people who suffer from weight related, um, diseases and conditions that, um, would benefit from this drug, not just to look more thin. It's, it's a, it's a, it's literally something that extends your life for some people. It's extremely, extremely exciting. This heart disease is usually. It's like the top of the list is like the number one form of death in the United States. And these drugs cut the risk of that by I've seen studies saying up to 20%. So that's pretty huge. That's a, that's a, that's a transformative thing for a lot of people's lives. And I agree. I just, I completely agree with Sophie. It's just completely, you know, I, I know a lot of people when they hear about what go via Zempic, these drugs, they, I think some people. Who maybe aren't familiar with it might just kind of, you know, scoff at it and just think it's some superficial, oh, that's just people who want to be skinny drug. But it's, it's really not about that. It's about reducing your risk of heart attack, heart disease, diabetes, you know, very serious medical issues. These drugs help significantly. And like I said, there's even science now it's, it's effective for reducing addiction and. Yes, it's actually kind of nice to have some good some good news i completely agree and also i wanted to mention this too because when i was doing research for this episode i saw that um some sources saying that um corporations in general um are a little bit worried about ozempic and other similar drugs because it has cut down on people's desire to consume in general whether that means like buying food like excess food or um indulging in certain things or um even um indulging in other like habits like caffeine addiction or other things like that um so apparently corporations are concerned about consumer behavior uh changing as a result of these drugs and to me i think that's good like i don't yeah like absolutely great that's great more power to us i guess to resist these um i would corporations i'm not saying everyone should be on those i'm not on those like that's not what i mean i just mean like i thought i thought that was a fascinating thing yeah no it's it's it is very interesting um to see like yeah that's i mean it's just it just we're just getting started which is kind of the interesting thing too as time goes on these drugs are going to get better cheaper you know just there's going to be continued innovation continued uh competitors coming because right now because it's just it's just kind of really entered the universe this year right now it's like really expensive and it kind of associated with basically like celebrities or people who are severely overweight who who kind of are prioritized by doctors to get it but as like competitor drug companies are making more it's it's get it's already getting like a hell of a lot cheaper so we'll see it'll we're just getting started with how this is going to change our world yes i'm very glad i mean i think like someone in my family definitely could have benefited from it and they're no longer with us so i'm just hopefully this will help a lot of people i agree anyways um what's your fourth topic what's your fourth story my fourth story is the chinese spy balloon oh that was this year i thought that was 2022 oh no it was this year i think no you're i think i'm pretty sure it's this year it's this year yeah it was this year it was it was at the end of january of 2023 so yeah so that was kind of weird that was that was strange that was a weird time that's kind of fun honestly it was fun it was fun i let's see what the heck was this thing because i remember this was this was was it even a spy balloon or was it well they claimed it was a weather balloon and then i think we just assumed that it was not like i think most people agreed that it was not a weather balloon so what i'm reading here is following an analysis of the debris in june so this was like three months later four months later u.s officials stated that the balloon carried intelligence gathering equipment but does not appear to have sent information back to china so and then i don't know like i honestly i bet let me just you know it very well could have been a weather balloon like for real it could have been a weather balloon like that the point the point is is the the main takeaway with the story was and still is is it was very stupid because what happened was it was a balloon that flew over america united states flew over america from west to east and maybe even even if it was like the worst case scenario that it was legitimately a spy balloon sending information back to china about where specific things in the united states are located that really wouldn't be so bad because like that's that's information that's like pretty easily obtainable anyways like i'm assuming through tiktok they and other things they china probably already has a lot of information yeah or just regular old satellites in the sky like google maps or whatever you know if you want to figure out where specific things are in the united states go on google maps and zoom in you'll figure it out so it was but but what happened was fox news and the republicans were like this is outrageous that joe biden is letting a chinese balloon fly over our skies and how dare they how dare he let china humiliate humiliate us like this and you know initially when when people saw this balloon like a lot of the articles were like yeah it's we don't know what it is but you probably shouldn't shoot it down because the missiles you use to shoot it down cost like a million dollars each and the debris can kill someone so it's probably not worth it even if it is a spy balloon but then it kind of turned into this whole thing where fox news was like losing their mind over biden's weakness to china so then bina was bina biden went beast mode it was like how we gotta get this thing down take it down now and they shot it down and now it kind of seems like doing a scan from this wikipedia article like four months later they were like so it might have just been like nothing cool cool so that was that was fun yeah it was fun it was fun yeah that was a special i feel like that was like before shit hit the fan okay so now i'm reading here that general mark milley said it was a spy balloon but we know with a high degree of certainty it got no intelligence and didn't transmit any intelligence back to china that sounds like bullcrap either it's a spy i don't understand how it could be a spy it was like i don't know it just it doesn't it doesn't it just doesn't matter it just doesn't matter okay i it was fun that's that that was the main story is it was fun maybe it was collecting information maybe it wasn't i don't know who cares i think the the important thing was it spiced up our lives a little bit all right well speaking up speaking of spicing up lives that's my fourth one too is some some someone that wasn't not necessarily the most significant thing to ever happen but defined a lot of the um year with his antics and that's george santos um i thought it'd be wrong not to talk about him here just because like we're kind of focusing on like kind of fun crazy stuff or like just you know it's pretty informal this this episode so um i feel like george santos besides taylor swift i couldn't bring myself to talk about her on this episode but besides taylor swift seems to be like a highly talked about person in pop culture even though he's in politics i was just i was just thinking of the story with the the thing that happened this week but that's completely unrelated and it's it's shameful i would dare dare make that connection about what was that thing that happened this week in the the was like house of representatives or was it in the senate with the um the only fans video oh that oh yes oh yes unrelated to the only fans video filmed inside of the senate room i'm sorry folks my i was thinking i was trying to think of cameo but my brain all right all right well i guess george santos has a connection to both only fans and cameos because oh yeah that's right okay well there we go he reportedly spent campaign funds on a lot of uh non-campaign related things including um ermes plastic surgery botox payments um other personal credit card bills and other debts travel to atlantic city in las vegas without any connection to a campaign um and then a small amount apparently on only fans subscriptions so there is an only fans connection um this really got him in trouble and he was uh indicted on federal charges and he was um expelled from his position um so now what he's doing to uh get back on his feet is as a cameo and he's making like a ton of money on cameo because he'll say anything i love i love that his cam i love that he'll say anything on cameo because one it's funny but two it's also a perfect representation of who he is yeah he'll say anything for a buck no shame no shame and we'll do anything for money but he's charging like five hundred dollars a pop so yeah for five hundred dollars i would say anything also very true well not not anything but within reason within reason i would never say anything republican no never um but anyway um george is is known for lying he's lied about so many things i can't even get into how many things he's lied about go read his wikipedia page it's a fun time if you haven't already but yeah i just i feel like george santos and his antics defined like a lot of the memes of this year and like the more fun side of politics even though it maybe it's actually quite dark what he did but um i don't know for some reason just he was sort of hmm he he became a little bit of an anti-hero um and made his way into me spiced up our lives yeah he did spice up our lives so that's why i included him yeah i like um i like how it's like you know it's it's one of those things where it's like it kind of reminds me just a teeny teeny teeny bit of like the whole donald just like donald trump donald trump's existence where you like there's some things that donald trump says that is just so outrageous you can't help but admit it's like a little bit funny it's it'll tickle it tickles you a little bit but then there's the other part of you that's like just completely disgusted like something to me about people who are complete compulsive liars who feel no guilt no shame complete sociopaths willing to to you know become a republican become someone who who's voting to do horrible things in order to gain more power and stuff like that just just scares me and i hate people like that like sociopaths so i don't like him but i even though i have to admit seeing his cameos go viral it always it tickles me a little bit all right that's enough of the the word tickle for me but yes george santos tickles me a little bit no okay no he doesn't well uh was that your third no that was your fourth one okay all right so yes george santos definitely a defining figure of the year all right so my third topic news item that i wanted to reflect on was the the wagner or wagner group wagner group rebellion in russia and this was in june of 2023 and it lasted a day june 23rd into the 24th and i remember the night of the 23rd everyone was holding their breath like oh my goodness are we about to see russia's government collapse because we had this guy as a reminder that we had this guy prigazin who who who's like a fascist dude he supports the invasion of ukraine scumbag but he also was just like an egomaniac who had a really big social media presence and was criticizing the defense minister shoigu of russia and blaming shoigu for the the poor performance of russia's military and then all of a sudden it looks like he's he's leading prigazin is leading a coup of some sort leading some rebellion marching to moscow they managed to take a city they take the city rostov on don which is like a population of a million people and they take they take a headquarters of like the military so it's like it's just it's really bizarre because he's this this rebellion is just like shockingly successful like it does but then right when they get to moscow prigazin kind of just gives up like it's almost like he didn't i mean it's like he almost feels like he got further than he possibly could and he's like oh my god possibly expected um and he's basically like i'm done with this i don't want to do this and then a few months two months after exactly two months after the rebellion prigazin was killed in a plane crash along with other senior wagner leaders so i wanted the reason i i know i mean yeah they're not the reason i know what to say is because the composer yeah the the composer who is also a not a hitler's favorite composer yeah yeah he's he's got some classic some classic compositions that you've heard before because he's yes but he's notoriously associated with nazi germany hitler and everything like that so just obviously this group naming themselves the the the wagner wagner wagner you got it first all right okay wagner so the wagner group they tried to do a coup and they got really close and then they stopped and then everyone was so then it kind of came this game of speculation was like oh was this all just a uh you know like uh a false flag like a secret operation that putin was actually behind in order for putin to consolidate more power because it was just so weird everything about it was so weird um but then but then this guy prigazin died in a plane crash two months later and i was like oh okay that's that explains it that that's what happened so the reason i want to bring this up was one it was just crazy i remember i was at the at a um avenged sevenfold concert that night and the vocalist literally stopped and was just like yo i just want all of us to like stop fighting each other like what's happening in russia you know right now with this this this rebellion you know i just don't like to see people dying or whatever and i don't know i don't remember exactly it was like it was a valid good message you know like it was kind of a it was kind of a like objectively yeah like we don't want to see people die but that was just kind of the the mood of the night was like it just kind of felt like we were about to see the entire world change and then nothing happened basically so that was a crazy night and also i think there's an important like message because it's one of those things we all kind of forgot about but like right now the kind of the news items around ukraine are significantly less optimistic than six months ago if not full-blown pessimistic given that republicans are becoming a little bit more or significantly more hesitant to give ukraine any more aid given that the the ukraine counter-offensive has come to come to and basically come to fruition and didn't take that much territory back from the the occupier russia's occupied parts of ukraine so right now things are like oh man it looks like kind of it's like a stalemate right now between ukraine and russia but one i think this story highlights that this things could change overnight you know like if if some freaking weirdo prigazin weird freak could could like almost have a full-blown coup in russia just out of nowhere you know this was six months ago like six months ago it looked like you know that was going to be a change the whole world like i'm saying ukraine i think has done a mind-blowingly amazing job of defending their country and i think people need to just not let the pessimistic headlines get into their head too much because literally this happened six months ago so this was definitely one of the most interesting stories of the year and obviously i think there's going to be a hell of a lot more stuff coming around in 2024 just like this that is just completely unexpected um and hopefully won't will be will be good developments um but yeah just wanted to it was one of those weeks where when when the stuff was in the news everyone was tweeting like there were decades where weeks happen or yeah there are decades where weeks happens and weeks where decades happen or whatever like the lenin quote like everyone was like thinking this was going to be a huge revolution and then it kind of fizzled out but maybe next year maybe next year there's going to be something like this that happens that's a little bit more um what's the word successful more success well i don't want to even call it successful because i it's not really it's kind of like you know the wagner group's bad but um subs i guess like more with more substance like there's more more substantial i guess is the word yeah i just meant like successful as in like they actually achieved what they were doing true although i have no clue what the hell they were trying to do honestly yeah i mean like the whole thing is just like a little psychotic even still all right so that was my third what was number three what was uh what was your third barben heimer oh so barbie and oppenheimer coming out on the same day in summer 2023 um i remember there was a lot of fanfare and excitement and memes and op-eds and marketing and I don't know it was just like a it was a time where everyone was sort of thinking about it and um not that I I didn't think that Oppenheimer or Barbie were my favorite movies ever to be made but I feel like the excitement before like around it was something I haven't really seen in a long time um and it was fun to kind of experience it like as a collective you know what I mean well yeah I remember that was a really awesome week we have that picture of you and I standing out front of that pink limo now and yeah and honestly I felt like both movies were really and you you I you know I know you kind of said this but both movies were actually really damn good like really good they were they were like that was awesome like because it could have been because the thing is is like if one movie was really good and then let's say like Barbie was like pretty good pretty good but whatever then that would have kind of I mean it would still be a fun weekend because the event but the fact that both movies turned out to be pretty darn awesome just made the whole weekend even more exciting yeah and also I feel like both of the films mutually benefited from each other I think that because of the Barbenheimer phenomenon people who went to see Barbie also went to see Oppenheimer and then people who saw Oppenheimer or wanted to see Oppenheimer that then went to see Barbie um so yeah it was really not as much a competition as it was like a coat like collaboration yeah well that's a good point because the audience is probably for the most part would normally be pretty isolated with not that much overlap you know well maybe some oh no there's like there'd be some overlap wow so women can't watch Nolan or care about the war oh you got that so wrong I was saying that these dumb men are gonna go see Oppenheimer but they're gonna be too their masculinity is gonna be too fragile to see Barbie is what I was trying to say but because but because of the phenomenon of Barbenheimer lots of I mean honestly so I don't know like I might have not seen I might have not gone to see Barbie if it wasn't for the Barbenheimer thing wow you would have I would have made you okay let me rephrase that I would have made you go see Barbie if it wasn't for the Barbenheimer thing is that if I were single and they weren't on the same weekend how about that then I probably would have only seen well there you go you're one of those dumb men oh damn it I walked right into that I walked right into that you I would never call you no I would have seen Barbie no I would have seen you actually no I'm sorry I got my tongue out I would have seen Barbie but I wouldn't have seen Oppenheimer that's what I meant to say but because I'm dating you know you who who loves history and everything like you kind of dragged me to see Oppenheimer so well I'm glad I saw it you know I learned I didn't know about nice I didn't I didn't know that happened in Japan and I'm so happy I went and learned I learned about it yeah okay well yeah so I I don't know I think it was just it was a fun time and I think like we saw Barbie in a crowd like crowded theater a bunch of people who were super excited and that was really cool and then with Oppenheimer we saw it at uh Nighthawk Cinemas in Williamsburg and that was really fun yeah we had we got the tickets way in advance and it's we didn't yeah that was I feel like we saw we saw one on Saturday and one on Sunday and that already felt like a lot so I can't even imagine people who saw both in one day oh I could never do I'm sorry I would never be seeing seeing one one day and one the next day already felt like a little bit too much but I mean it was fun but you know um it was a it was something I felt like everyone did everyone did it and it was kind of funny because everyone it sort of was like everyone had their own Barbenheimer story like which one did you see first that's true everyone has their own everyone has like which which theater they went to which they saw first if they spread it out if they saw it in one day everyone has their own little thing but you know I have to say Sophie it does feel like in the Barbenheimer adventure Barbie was the main character and Oppenheimer was the the sidekick it was the supporting role it really was I agree because everyone was agreed but oh no yeah well yeah no I that's that's that's uh it's just a it's just a just a just a feminism win that's all it means feminism feminism dub yeah actually the feminism rate among men went up by like 13 percent so as a result of the Barbie movie apparently men who identify as feminists I think so no I'm serious it's a real really no you got me excited well I mean that could be that could be a really easy study yeah like did I know I just like wonder if that helped helped feminism the cause of feminism and got men on board or not it made me it made me identify as a feminist too like the feminist too like squared lovely okay I want to hear your second one what's your second one my second one was also Barbenheimer oh my god okay whoopsies well that's kind of fun though um that is fun I want to hear your second one what's your second one I want to hear your second one I wasn't sure if you were gonna put it on but yeah and you know I put it as number two so that just goes to show how much Barbenheimer meant to me this year oh because that was a very fun weekend yeah that was that was I remember I remember like talking to people the next week about it and it really really and work yeah and it really really felt like like I was asking people how their Christmas was or how their they were doing and Thanksgiving was or how their Halloween was it was a holiday it was a holiday for sure oh good to see you you know what'd you do over spring break but instead it's like oh what'd you do for the Barbenheimer weekend and I think that yeah I feel like I was I think the takeaway that I got away from it was society needs festivities and holidays because they a hundred that's exactly what I know it kind of reminded me of oh remember another thing it kind of reminded me of like that Pokemon Go week yeah that's that's a good comparison Pokemon Go came out and everyone was outside for the first time in a decade and everyone had fun but then yeah that was awesome yeah it's fun when we all collectively go through something pot pot relatively positive you know yeah and and the movies are really good yeah it wasn't a total letdown I feel like Barbenheimer and like the anticipation painted my entire summer you know yeah yeah that was that was the the event of the summer um yeah just lots of people walking around in pink and stuff like that all right so so because that was my number two now we got to hear your number two okay my number two is the girl trend and I don't know if you know what I mean by this but there's been like a trend that over the past like the over 2023 where people started saying like um girl dinner have you heard that before I've heard of girl I've heard of girl math and girl math that's what I want I want to talk about girl math and girl dinner um and my take my I just wanted to share my take on this I don't think we we didn't even recover this on the podcast but I feel like this is a really good thing to do I feel like this is a really good year like memes fashion everything for women has been kind of defined by like this girlhood idea like super hyper feminine like young bows everything like that um coquette that really like defined the year I think and um one of my mutuals um Ryan um she runs the account that adults on tiktok and instagram and she's like I don't know if you know what I'm talking about and she's a fashion critic and um uh she's really really smart and um she was basically discussing how this sort of hyper feminine girl blank vibe is almost infantilizing and not um productive it's not like as simple as like oh you can't like girly things it's more like why are we like so afraid of growing up with a girl who's like oh you can't like girly things it's more like you know what I mean I know I sound dumb but um like the idea of like girl math meaning like women can't do math so you have to have like a special kind for girls is like it's it's it's a fun joke but then it's also like oh this is really like oh wait is infantilizing and like embarrassing girl dinner does that imply it's like a light small dinner yeah so it's kind of like the rupaul with a bunch of random things like the rupaul tiktok I mean not tiktok tiktok the tiktok lunch it kind of is it's it's it's usually like a charcuterie board it's like a bunch of like random things assembled the i don't know the girl dinner thing is not as like insulting necessarily but it's like damn why aren't we eating full meals you know what i mean but okay this is so i'm gonna pry because i don't really know this room too much i'm gonna ask questions so are these memes when women post it it's got to have some self-awareness that this is like misogynistic right right i i mean i don't think it's intended to be misogynistic i think it's like the way someone else i saw put it was basically like we've given up on the ability of feminism to work the girl boss era failed so now we've sort of developed an apathy and rather we're embracing our position in the eyes of men because in some ways it benefits us like if you can't do real math they'll just like have a man do it for you and you'll be like a stay-at-home wife like like the idea of retreating into that because it's easier it's not easier but that it feels easier you know i mean to just be apathetic about feminism and um play play the part of a woman and deal with the misogyny but you know twist it to your benefit kind of thing that's sort of the way i think a lot of people are women are are engaging with feminism right now gotcha so it kind of does sound like a little bit like people who are posting this like acknowledge that it is misogynistic but they're they're kind of like owning it and like oh just owning it and working with it yeah have you heard of bimbo feminism yes basically like i'm a bimbo but i also am a radical left like it's really just a the idea is like being ironic like you you look like what a man would call a bimbo but you're actually intelligent politically engaged but it's it's insulting and it's not usually it's usually not actually done in full irony um i feel like this is like i am not very good at speaking on this like i would definitely go to that adult's tiktok because she's really smart about this this you know what i mean like yes it is it is maybe women got a little bit tired of of trying with the feminist stuff yes and now they're doing this and then they'll probably get tired of this too and be like wait this is kind of like a played out meme that actually it's not fun and then then you'll see a lot of like feminist stuff again in like a year hopefully yeah yeah i think so i think this like kind of this like post-leftist reactionary genre of meme it pops its head once in a while you know what i mean it pops its head once in a while yeah so yeah i i just kind of want to say like that was a defining thing like girl math but it's it's it's just math guys like let's be let's be and i love girly things i love bows i love it all i just i think i think it's it's we we we need to grow up just a little you know the yeah no it's i mean her name was there's there's such thing as being bad at her name was jonah varka oh my god you got me you you you solved my heart plus your heart equals love oh see that's that's girl math yeah that was girl math oh that's sweet that was that is sweet boys can boys can do girl math too so maybe it's not girl math well you were saying so you were saying i'm the best at math but the math in question was about love and not actual real math i did i did a misogyny didn't i no you didn't no it was cute it was okay okay i want to hear your number one what's what's your number all right um so my number one is donald trump's mug shots oh i knew you're gonna do that i i knew i was gonna ask you to guess but i was like i'm just gonna say it she's because she knows what it is probably already yes so what a day so the funny thing is sophie is the mug shot it came out in august of this year really and that's like what like four months ago so it's like nothing anyways the point is is trump you okay so it was only it was four months ago and that's really not that long ago and literally no one cares anymore about the mug shot no i know i totally forgot about it until today because i was actually considering it on my list as well you left it off because you knew you needed to give me the spotlight to yeah thank you that was sweet of you well anyway what i was trying to say is before it came out and this is like you've heard this conversation a million times it's like when the trump mug shot comes out one of two things is going to happen either this is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back and it's finally going to sink in to millions of americans who support him that they support a sociopath and they've been played or or like the many other bad things that he's done no one's going to care and everyone's going to move on and he's going to continue being at the top of the polls and stuff like that and obviously the second thing happened and as as of now with sophie and i talking about trump right now mid-december 2023 trump is like leading biden in the polls even by a decent amount so trump is doing very he's doing perfectly fine and the mug shot obviously didn't hurt it really it didn't hurt him it might have helped him who god knows who knows what happened with that as usual with trump something that should get him in a lot of trouble only helps him or or we just forget about yeah so when i see the mug shot i feel a lot of emotions i feel one like a little bit of happiness that finally he's put in his dang place which is he has to face some consequences of the legal system and hopefully he goes to jail we'll see probably not but we'll see and it was fun to make memes it was fun to me yeah that was how i kind of experienced it i've made has a few viral yeah yes mugshot edits myself yes exactly so there's a part of it me when i see it it's like a little bit of that fun good feeling of trump getting owned but then there's also a decent amount of bad feeling of like oh my god this guy this dude literally has a mug shot now and he just looks like a fascist crook in the picture and this dude is is still very popular and has a lot of support and might end up being president again like so it's very it's like it's it's i can't really just have all that much fun with it because it's kind of like an uh the photo itself is like a a symbol of america's just sucking really bad in a way and that makes me a little bit sad you know what i mean yeah but but we got a lot of likes on instagram when we posted memes of it that's all that matters sophie and i are here for patreon subscribers we're here for instagram followers sorry okay you give us your number one all right can you guess what mine is is it um roe versus wade i think that happened last year i'm sorry sophie i don't know what you're not what is it no it's okay it's okay no mine is the submersible oh god damn it that's of course number one i'm sorry sophie i don't know what you're not i'm sorry sophie i don't know what you're one of course i'm surprised you didn't have it on your list well yeah you know what's funny is i i remembered it i completely forgot about it but i remembered it during this conversation because remember how i said the avenge sevenfold vocalist like did like a little like we need peace and stuff like that kind of conversation while he was yeah he all that was actually like that happened i think the same week as the submersible and and so he was like say he actually he actually in his little his little speech he he gave he he he both kind of like said he wanted peace in ukraine and was disturbed by the stuff happening in russia and he also said he was disturbed also by because by by this time of the week the the submersible conversation had had like deteriorated into people fighting over the the correct you know emotional response to to to billionaires dying in the submersible so he was like kind of saying he also was like saying like you know no guys we shouldn't be you know celebrating people dying or whatever so it was just like a it was like that that's so so that was the mental connection i made but no i didn't put it on my list because i forgot about it and even if i remembered it i probably wouldn't put it on my list anyways because that gave me brain damage okay fair enough well yeah the submersible i i feel like i had to include it because it was one of the most like remarkable like kind of cinematic things to happen this year again not necessarily the most important thing to happen this year but just something i thought was fascinating and kind of defined a lot of the the the freaking submersible should have been the person of the year 2023 oh my god or what's his name uh i almost said hawkins fuller who's a character from uh fellow travelers by the way to the listeners on show travelers is amazing go watch it yeah go watch it um no i was actually referring to stockton rush stockton rush i don't know it wasn't quite enough to discuss like to have him be the time person of the year but i don't know i just find that story crazy crazy they made their experimental submersible yeah they were able to get a get away with doing it because it was just slowly breaking apart and then those unlucky people just got in at the worst time yeah and i don't know like the fact that they were really wealthy kind of paint like informed a lot of the story because that was like a lot of the discourse was about that and like if we should be celebrating this or i don't know i i'm always feel a little weird about celebrating death regardless of who is dying i think at this point and especially because there's a 19 year old boy yeah that's right well i have to say i can digest this story a lot better now now that i know they died instantaneously um yeah i mean although i think they did know they were going to die before they died because they were hearing crap they they were probably hearing cracks in the hall like a minute or two before and like they probably were anticipating something okay but that's that's that's a million times better than what we all thought that's true like we all like me and most people were visualizing like five people in pitch black at the bottom of the ocean for like three days while they're running out of oxygen you know what i mean like that i think was that that also like just like the the level of mental distress of horror so that was that was also just like an additional twist so i like literally this story repulsed me because it was just it just like my like all i could think of was like oh my god imagine if i was in that like torture chamber essentially so now i can actually digest the story and yeah the discourse that week was just so bad but we're that's in the past now now that now we're now that it's been enough time i can actually go further i support i support the submersible i said i support the submersible i'm pro billionaire i'm pro i'm pro i'm pro i'm pro paying money to go look at the titanic well that's the thing a lot of people are saying like why would anyone ever want to do that and when people said that i i disagreed like i don't think i would have done it first of all i couldn't afford it second of all i think i'd be too afraid to do it myself but as someone who loves titanic is really fascinated by the titanic and its history i think it would be very fascinating to actually see it in person so i don't want to hate on that desire because i think i think that's a very natural desire to want to see that i don't know why people say they wouldn't i mean i know it is associated with tragedy so that does make sense but for me like it's such a iconic historical event that i would be fascinated and i i would want to see it but i don't i couldn't afford it and i'd also be too afraid so i i didn't really understand the the backlash against the desire to see it yeah no of course not i think people were just kind of at some point i think the discourse kind of spiraled into everyone was grasping for straws to justify their take on whether they were pro these people dying or anti these people dying and like i feel like that's just like a real bottom of the barrel justification to like justify why you're posting online that you're happy these people are like suffocating to death at the bottom of the ocean i don't know anyways sorry to the listeners that we had to we had to you know tap this conversation back open but it really i think sophie i think you're pretty spot on to put it as number one as the number because like look it's already sucking it's a black hole of discourse it's already sucking us in back to talking about every damn angle about this awful story yeah i don't know i just thought it was kind of like a cinematic like insane thing that happened i i i i i agree so yeah yeah all right well anything else remember when we brought up the submersible on the wise blood interview we did and even wise blood was like oh yeah oh yeah she was she was into it too yeah so she had similar thoughts as we did which was um she she spoke to the hubris of mankind which is also kind of a fascinating idea and it in the experience of the human being yeah i think that's um that's that's that's uh that's that's uh but that good episode well yeah i mean i just real quick you know people might obviously obvious people might be scratching their heads and like asking about like you know what what about the the you know war in gaza right now why is that not on our lists or why is the turkey earthquake not you know there was a lot of there's a lot of really really heavy stuff that happened this year obviously we did not include in this episode the the goal was to just just talk about like overall fascinating stories that happened and they're not necessarily like most important the most important stories that happened and they're not necessarily like the most important things or them yeah so that's just a important disclaimer all right with that i think we're at the end um thank you all for listening we really appreciate it thanks for being a base news networker for the year of 2023 we appreciate it so much um it's almost been like maybe even over a year and a half since we started the show so thank you all for listening and supporting us and um thank you to our patreon subscribers we really appreciate it it helps us do what we do every week for y'all so thank you so much and real quick i'm going to plug because this is the last episode well we're going to have a patreon episode coming out next week but also real quick i wanted to plug though um i have my band fireman has an ep coming out january 1st uh the band called territorial conquest 2024 so if you really want to support me one easy way you could do that is to stream it when it comes out on january 1st thank you all check out kaya's music when it comes out yes this has been based news network bye