[UNLOCKED] A Conversation w/ Dan Hentschel (Full Episode)

Hello Godlovers, welcome back to a special unlocked episode of I Need God pod. This is our full length episode with Dan Henshel available for free for the first time. If you don't know who Dan is, he's a social media content creator, personality, comedian. You should look up Dan Henshel if you don't know. You probably know if you're already listening to this. I recorded this episode with Dan in November 2023. I think since then, he's only gotten more popular online, honestly. And in the episode, we go through his religious history and upbringing and some jobs he's had. We talk about his creative process and journey of making videos online and how he blends irony and sincerity in his content. And we reflect on just the evolving nature of spirituality and religion in modern times to if you are someone who loves conversations about God and spirituality, then please consider joining us on patreon at patreon.com/inideGod. There's already a new episode there to listen to. My plan is to make 2025 the biggest year for I Need God pod. Two episodes a month at least, plus bonus episodes on the Patreon. If you want to support these kind of conversations, if you enjoy listening to me talk to different people about God and spirituality as I do on this podcast, then check it out. Just go to patreon.com/inideGod. If not, no worries. Here's a full free episode unlocked for your listening pleasure with none other than Dan Henshel. Take it away, Dan. Thank you God for loving me. You have given me my great artistic talent. May I always use it in a way that praises you, amen. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Amen. [Music] Hello. Thanks for having me. Welcome to I Need God pod. I first feel like you came into vision this year for so many people like you really popped off, but then for me it was like when you started wearing the priest outfit obviously a ton of people started sending that to me and I was like, wow, loving this, loving this priest cosplay. So, thank you. Yeah, I'm so glad that you liked it because I was worried that you would think I was stealing your bit by doing it, but I had, because I had always been such a huge fan of your page. Oh, really? Cool. Yeah. How long have you been aware of I Need God? I think it was Willow Pill. She had reposted something onto your story. Yes. And it was, yeah, the consistent quality. Thank you. The consistency is really like key. I feel like before we talk about the internet and stuff, I was curious about your religious history. Were you raised in any sort of certain faith or any tradition? Yes. I was raised Catholic. So I was baptized. Okay. Got all of the sacraments. Yeah. What was your confirmation name? Oh, my gosh. I actually don't remember. I think it was Francis or something. Francis maybe? Maybe George, because that's my middle name. Okay. So were your parents actually like a devotely religious or is it kind of just like you were Catholic and your family just kind of went? I would say somewhere in the middle, they definitely were started to get very upset when I started to have these feelings of maybe this wasn't resonating with me as much as them. I think that started to bother them when I was starting to like repeat my Reddit or atheism points. But overall, they've actually been very supportive. So I have to give them a lot of credit, they, you know, I think we actually do have a lot of the same beliefs at the core, but it just sort of comes out in different manifestations. Yeah, addressed in different ways maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Were your grandparents religious at all? Yes. I think. Well, I grew up in the Maryland suburbs in an area where kind of everybody was Catholic. Like 99% of people were white and Catholic. And I think that that was one of the things that I was thinking about earlier when I was trying to go through my religious history was I almost think that because of, and this is probably true for a lot of faith communities now, but that since we were kind of the first generation to have the internet, we started to at a younger age, speaking for myself, I guess I started to I think get alternative theology or different types of talking points that I wouldn't normally have been exposed to or that maybe, you know, my parents had never been exposed to at a much younger age. Yeah. Definitely. Same with me. Like I'm from Pennsylvania and it was 99% like white Catholic people, but like most places in the world aren't that much Catholic. So it is kind of rare to be from somewhere that's like predominantly Catholic in the United States. Yeah. That's something I never really realized until I got older, but I guess the majority, the US is probably majority Protestant, right? Oh, yeah, definitely not 100% Protestant, but like 100% yes, because like even places that are Catholic aren't usually more than like 50% Catholic, but it just is like where I'm from, it's all these like Italian, Irish and Polish immigrants. So it's like they were just Catholic when they came here and it's like what I knew. Now it's different. Yeah. Like with the internet, it's way different. It changes how people experience faith because you could just know too much, basically like your community is online and there's so many different people there. Right. Were you ever part of like any like forums or any online communities growing up? I had a computer in my room at a pretty young age, which was definitely a mistake. And I think one of the first places that I would frequent were these message boards for Spider-Man, just like the general Spider-Man writer, sure, and also movie scores. That was another one I was a part of, something called soundtrack dot net. So it was it was those two comic books and movie scores. And even back then, it's funny because I brought this up to somebody recently and they said oh, that makes a lot of sense seeing where you ended up. But that was sort of when I started like really enjoying too. I guess troll is the word because I would post these sort of things that I knew we're going to upset people, but I was just kind of being a little shit. I don't know if I can say you could say anything you want. All right. All right. Yeah. I feel like earlier in the internet, it was more anonymous like it was separate from your friend group. And you could kind of just play whatever characters you wanted and like I wouldn't call it trolling, but it's like maybe it is trolling. It's interesting because now you like use your full real name as your like persona name. It was there any when you made your TikTok account where you're just like I'm Dan Henshul and it's it's okay that I'm playing characters. I just have people Google my full name. Yeah. I sort of only really realized a few months in that maybe it was a mistake to use my actual name, but I think that because I'm I've sort of got like I was always kind of in that entertainment track, you know, if any publicity would be good publicity. So I just was happy if people do what my name was at all. No shame. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Were you like in theater in high school or in the comedy troop in college or anything like that growing up in high school? I was the sound guy for the theater department. So I at least had a little bit more dignity than the people who were actually, you know, yeah, front face. Performing. Definitely. They always tried to get me to do it though because we had there were so few men who wanted to do the theater role. Yeah. So they had like one art. We did God's spell one year and it was pretty much I hate to say this, but the only kid that we had to do leading male roles was like by four or something. So they had him play Jesus because that was the only, you know, person. We missed out on you like we need the DVD of you singing the songs from God's spell in high school. That's so sad. No. Well, there's a lot of videos from back then that I hope stay, you know, on a DVD in a drawer somewhere for the rest of time. Yeah. So you were making videos like with a DV camera or like with old digital cameras and making like for yourself or with your cousins or anything like that. Yeah. Me and my brother, I had a younger brother and so it's he alive. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. I say that because at that time my younger brother and I would make all sorts of stuff because I personally didn't have. I had friends, but it was definitely like more of an insular sort of situation that I had at home and we would kind of like play pretend like all kids do, but I think we had many DV tapes at the time, like the little cassette tapes. Yeah. So that was kind of where it started, at least technology wise. With your kind of like TikTok, I feel like because you play it, well, it's obviously satire and it's obviously comedy, but I feel like because you play it straight, there are so many people who are like confused or something. Yeah. I think I don't know if I have a humiliation, kank or whatever it is, but there's a special little extra sort of makes me feel some kind of way when people take it at face value and then react accordingly if someone were to actually do these things. But that's also kind of I think what's interesting for me about it is, you know, I always like to keep it grounded in reality. Right. Right. Like it can be real. Like it feels like this is possible. Yeah. Because I think the thing that I personally find the funniest is people being normal in their normal day to day lives because I used to, I think that that comes from like a sort of voyeurism when I worked at an ad agency in Georgia and my job was pretty much to go around to small businesses and film all of the, you know, people who wanted to like, realtors to do their Facebook videos or whatever it was. And they were always really like not media trained at all and they were really uncomfortable on camera. So sort of being, being able to film them and then go back and watch their idiosyncrasies like these normally never probably be in front of a camera at all. Yeah. They were inspired, inspired by them. That's, that's interesting. You pull your inspiration from that like dynamic between the performer, like who's performing in front of the camera and why it kind of reminds me of Michael Scott, I guess a little bit because you play these kind of like authority figures who abuse their power in a flippant way. Yeah. Did that evolve like how did, when you were like posting TikToks, how did it evolve into you choosing these sort of like authority figures like a therapist, doctor, boss, teacher, judge? Like when you brought that up, that was really the first time that I had thought about it like that. Because I guess I really don't try to intellectualize it in my head too much. But when you mentioned that, I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, going back and looking through it, it's all kind of like a similar sort of like occupations that have a more revered status in society. Like you're supposed to trust these people, these are the people we trust as the, like the pilot. Yeah. Exactly. Um, that definitely started with the therapist because my mom was a therapist. Oh. And so that was always like kind of an interesting. I think that a lot of people, like I said, have this view of a therapist that's very much one-dimensional or it's like, um, stigmatized with a certain extent or they think it's some oracle genie that's going to fix all my problems. Right. Like it will fix them. But for me, the therapist in my life was the person who caused all of my problems psychologically. And also it was a blessing too in some ways because I grew up with a really heightened sense of emotional awareness, you know, right since your mother's a therapist. Yeah. And I sort of had that grammar, my whole life, you were raised. But at the same time, it was interesting to like my comparison for every therapist is how much they remind me of my mother and the therapist is always mom to me. Right. Of course. How else would it be? Yeah. But why would your mom being a therapist, did she recommend you get therapy or is it something you chose to do or is it just like something that your family encourages because it's part of the family like, I think that there was always an openness there in my family about emotions and about these sort of like we had dysfunctions like any other family does. But I think that because that was my mom's industry, um, if we, when I first started to come to them and say that I was having mental health problems or these sorts of things. And they were like, Oh, well, wait, go to therapy to get meds and all that stuff. That's just what you do. So nice. That definitely, I feel fortunate for that in retrospect. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Not a lot of people grow up with that kind of environment or encouragement or like openness about that kind of thing, especially 20 years ago, I guess compared to now. I've got more popular now than ever. Yeah. For better or worse. It was interesting, too, because as a kid, I would remember my mom coming home from her day of seeing clients and she would like listen to the voicemails on speaker and sort of say, like, Oh, my God. Just shut up, you know, and all that kind of stuff. So I think seeing that definitely informed my understanding that a therapist is just a person, you know, like anybody else. Right. But a lot of times crazier than you are. Yeah. I guess it's kind of a lot like when your mom or dad is a teacher at the school, it's like the teacher is never a person, but like if you live with the teacher, then you're like, wait, they are just like a person, too. But like it's kind of like that with any authority figure, I guess. They become more than human in a way. I feel like your videos are so good at that. It's like undercutting the like the kind of like perceptions that these like people have by like subverting, like what you'd expect them to say, I guess, or whatever. Yeah. That's super interesting. Honestly, because again, that was never something I thought about consciously. But now that you explain it, that is sort of how I always felt and how I feel now, especially growing up, going to Catholic school, I went to Catholic school pretty much until college. Okay. I almost went to Catholic school all the way through high school. Yes. Yeah. So you were going to mass in high school, like as a teenager and reading, and you were reading the R-Atheism post. Yes. And my girlfriend at the time in high school got in a really big fight one time because another friend of ours had to infamously go on and read it and looked at all of these things and become an Atheist after that. And so she was really concerned because she was definitely drinking the Kool-Aid at that time and didn't want what happened to him to happen to me, basically. Oh my gosh. And then she ended up becoming an Atheist later anyway. So I was technically right the whole time. Technically right. What do you mean? Not like that. But in the argument, I mean, I was. Oh, okay. Right. Yes. She had no place to tell you what to believe. Exactly. So at that time, I think because that was the main force in my life and that was the main authority, there was a natural sort of backlash, you know, having that consistent authority figure made me want to distance myself from the church and all that as much as possible. Yeah. I think that I'm going to sue a lot of people because now that you mention it, I certainly wouldn't describe myself as an Atheist. Now I think honestly, as I get older, the more I sort of go back to those things that Catholicism gave me and realize that probably like I said, I think that when I actually talk to a lot of the people from my hometown and we have philosophical discussions and all that stuff, we usually end up agreeing on most things in general. Such as heaven. I remember having a discussion with my dad about heaven because I was sort of being introduced to this concept that heaven might not necessarily be a physical place. It might be like a state of being after you die where you sort of live on in the ether, in the memories of people and your legacy and all of that stuff and you know, that could be it. I don't know. But I think it's a good way. It's not a bad way to think of it. Yeah. But I remember my dad saying that he actually pretty much felt like that was he agreed with me pretty much. Yeah. And you're on the same page kind of. Yeah. And the only reason that he had sort of butted heads on what exactly you label it. You know, I think it's a different manifestations for both of us. Yeah. And I think like people who are our parents age, like you said before, they screw up in a different time, they'd access to different information society was different in a number of ways. So it's like, there is a transformation going on spiritually in America right now. Like what? What would you say that like as time goes on like distinct religious groups become more remixed and more like picked and choose between almost like you were saying just because of the way information we have more information to be shared and more ways and languages to like approach spirituality and the power of the institutions is becoming weaker like religious institutions themselves. But that doesn't mean that necessarily people are less spiritual or less interested in thinking about the meaning of life and like those philosophical questions that religion often helps us, you know, approach essentially. So like even though religion itself seems that it's like waning like for example that your father would even be like, yeah, like I could conceptualize heaven in a different way. Like I don't have to do it by the book or something like by the exact word. I just think like as time moves forward, it's just things are going to become more just like remixed essentially. Because like people are going to like we're we're in a phase right now that's like not reddit atheism where like maybe reddit atheism was popular between like 2000 and 2010. But like from 2010 to well maybe a little after 2010, but it's like there's this new phase everyone's in where people are considering like, okay, well maybe like atheism doesn't give me any answers actually it's just another belief really and like there I do feel I do feel like I have a soul or I have a spirit, I do feel like all these things like when people die like you suddenly get super spiritual and you're like, well atheism can't really answer these questions like in science too, like the failure of science, I feel like people are realizing oh science that you should you should do scientists videos. I don't know if you've done them yet. There's like you know like science doesn't really have any real answers. Yeah, that's exactly right or especially because my brother is becoming a doctor in med school right now and oh wow. So I was eventually I was kind of like, well maybe I shouldn't have I should have changed my name because he's going to actually have to be Dr. Henshel in real life. So hopefully the doctors take doesn't get too famous otherwise I would feel bad for him. No, I think it's really funny that he's a doctor and you're a fake doctor. Yeah, there's definitely some kind of baggage there. It's on pack. But it's funny that you say that because a lot of times like so for instance this morning I had to take my car in to get break rotors or whatever it is. And okay, I was on the phone with the car mechanic guy and then after I hung up the phone, I rode down like car mechanic because I was thinking about if I were in that situation, like if I had to be one of these jobs, mechanic, priest, doctor, you know, I feel like I am at heart really kind of a con artist. So I'm just kind of trying to get to the end of the day without people asking too many questions. And I think that that works well because I've had the privileges of being able to pursue my creativity and what, you know, I've had a lot of privileges in that regard. But if I actually had to fill those shoes, like I would be a terrible doctor or a terrible pilot or whatever it is because I would just be kind of trying to cut corners and bullshit as much. Right. Well, it makes me think like people in those positions, half of it must be made up on the spot. Like anyway, like they must be doing the same thing. Like you just have to act with authority sometimes. Like you no one knows everything. I mean, I guess so. That must be what it is because I think another thing that's mystifying to me too is that I am completely incapable of like confidently projecting that type of authority in my day to day life. So I do think that there are certain, I mean, I would hope that there are certain fundamental brain neurology differences between the person like me and a person who decides to actually become a doctor. You know, oh, I'm sure there are. Yeah, I'm sure there are. I would become a doctor as a joke too, only as a joke. But I couldn't do it actually. But I've done things in real life as a joke. Like I've gotten jobs as a joke before. Like I am broken in that way. But like I worked at the 9/11 museum and it was like, I made a music video about working there like in my uniform and stuff. And it was like, I needed the job. Like I didn't really have any direct. I still don't really have any direction. But I didn't really then like career wise. So it's like, okay, well, this is funny. I would say I worked at the 9/11 museum. I could like see how it operates. And it was very like an anthropological experience. But that's kind of just cope for having to do like a bad job. You know what I mean? And that's super interesting though, because I sort of looked at it the same way and still do where, you know, if I doing a lot of different jobs and getting that experience, feeling a lot of different shoes, I think is really important to becoming an interesting person. Or at least somebody who, you know, has more of an awareness of how things operate. Yeah, someone who's curious about the world and not just focus narrowly on like one subject, which is good for people who are. Yeah. And I did the same sort of thing where like I would get a job for a couple of weeks because I needed 500 bucks. You know, and so I was like, I remember once when I was home for the summer from college, I worked at T-Mobile and I got hired at a T-Mobile store like in August pretty much. And so I told them that I was going to school locally and all this stuff. And I'd be here for however long it was. And then I did like the first couple of weeks of training and then quit on this spot. And I got 500 bucks out of that. But that was sort of a similar thing where it was like, okay, like I was never going to just go into a situation and like a job, I guess, and just piece out whenever, you know, just be like, I'm done. I only came here for two weeks to collect my $500. Yeah. Is it like kind of like improv? Do you find it like in that way? Do you feel like you're acting when you do it? When you worked at T-Mobile or how does it feel to work at T-Mobile? Well, I don't really think I felt anything because of that, I think that specific week I had just gotten a gum grab surgery. So I was taking a lot of opioid painkillers. And I remember just sort of like standing there and like wow, sort of drooling out of the side of my mouth. When somebody would come in and like talk to me about wanting to get a phone or something, which I have no clue how many of that stuff works. It was a similar thing when I worked at Best Buy because I only worked there for about a month and I didn't know the answer to anybody's questions, but they were so desperate for people that it was literally like you're saying kind of like improv where somebody would come in and say, yeah, I had this fake sense of authority. I had the blue shirt. And so I was just trying to do a convincing enough job of sounding like I knew what I was talking about to the world where they would buy something. Or I would like to realize that the person knows more than I do about it and then just kind of hair red, whatever they just said before. When did you move to LA? I actually moved pretty much in the middle of the pandemic, September 2020. Okay. And good timing. Yeah, I that was during a specific period where I think we were in a bit of a wall. So it was not completely socially unacceptable for me to move across the country. Yeah. And to spend all day online. Right. Exactly. I think that literally, though, was because I told my job, listen, I'm thinking about COVID really sort of made me understand how fragile society is and all of this stuff. So I need to pursue my dreams while I can. So I'm going to move to California. And they said they were like, well, you can do a remote. Everybody's doing remote now. So one of you just, you know, keep doing what you're doing. Just work remote. So you do a remote job that same job. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That I'm getting for maybe I shouldn't say what it is. No, it's okay. It's a good job. Because also, I always forget that I used to do very front facing stuff for them. Like I was doing all their funny social media videos and all that for a while. I actually had somebody comment on one of my videos. Aren't you that guy Dr. Cush from smoke cartel? Oh my gosh. Dr. Cush. That's fun. So they were like, you could just take over our social and just be funny for us. And they paid you. Yeah. That rocks. It's sort of a subgenre that I don't really understand, like smoke, wear and all of that stuff again. I sort of make it up as I go along. But I'm always worried that eventually somebody's, because I use this same table and all the Instagram videos. So eventually somebody's going to be like, isn't that the same table from that the priest has? Yeah. Well, that would help Dr. that would help your like, it's not bad. It can't be bad. Yeah. I mean, I can't be bad. So I don't know. Yeah. But that was what a lot of my work experience was was in social media marketing. At least after I graduated college. What did you go to college for? I went to Savannah College of Art and Design. Scared. Oh nice. So I was went there for film and dramatic writing, which is basically no screenwriting. Yeah. I was going to ask you stuff like that because I felt like maybe you have favorite movies or favorite TV shows or favorite TV characters or favorite comedians or anything like that. Do you have a letterbox? What is your favorite movies? I don't know. I tried to do letterbox for a while, but I would always find myself like getting 30 minutes into the movie. I'm just trying to think of a funny one-liner for my letterbox review and then yeah, that's not. And then like hoping that it was still relevant by the end of the movie. Oh, that's bad. And then I started to get really like in my head about having to give everything a star rating. I started to get kind of that. So that was just a whole mess. I see. Sometimes I do a segment on the podcast called what do you stand? Do you stand anything? Well, I guess I used to be a Taylor Swift stand, but I think wow, she got into this sort of like indie ordo situation. You fell off during folklore? Yes, that was actually I would say jumping off point for me because I was more. See, that's where I got on. Oh yeah. Yeah. Before that, I was like, you know, my sister's your age. I was like, this is for my little sister. It's fine, but she's annoying. She represents white supremacy to me. But then when folklore happened, I was like, wow, this girl's doing. This folk music is hitting. This is exactly what we needed. She's like bought the vinyl of it. Wow. But I'm not a super fan or anything. But the 1989 Taylor's version just came out. So have you listened to the new song? No, I just saw this one. It was out. But I have to from a marketing perspective, that was a pretty genius. Almost like insane and live for her to be like insane. I would call it. What if I just do everything again? I can't hate it. It's performance art in a way. Like it's interesting. Like she's making copies of all of her own songs. It's sort of gives me like this deep dark hit in my stomach about the future of media and art. And music even. Yeah. Industry stuff. Yeah. Because Taylor Swift, I guess right now, I would say she's one of our few actual like pop celebrities currently. Absolutely. Like right. She represents millennia. She is the representative of like millennials. Right. She is the biggest one. And it's interesting because I feel like it seems like so obvious today because she's so, so famous currently. But like I don't know five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have necessarily predicted that she would stay like as relevant as she has. But she's a mastermind. I guess so. I mean, it's it's interesting to think like I feel like it's become so difficult for somebody to you know, the internet and social media has kind of made everybody a celebrity to an extent. So it's really difficult. I think to get like in the public consciousness as like a celebrity. True. Like celebrities themselves in general are just like evening out with like plethora of like micro celebrities from the internet even like everything is turning turning into the same thing like they used to be an elevated thing. And now it's less. So I guess, but she's managed to just like keep that going somehow. Yeah. I don't know. Like having like as I have like one point eight million followers on TikTok. But that's kind of these days that any old like whatever one million is like anyone. Exactly. And I always am like you have to be really careful because sometimes I'll find an account or a video that I think is the worst thing. I've ever seen in my life. And then I check and they have like two million followers or whatever it is. So I've always be like, okay, don't there is a chance that everybody who follows you is a moron with terrible taste. So I can't let myself necessarily get to you know, you've got to always try to beat. That's why I for a while I was doing actually I started doing food content. I think it would be a kind of thing where I would like put monster and a scrambled eggs. Great. That sort of stuff because I was new to the attention. And so I was just kind of trying to sustain it in any way that I could. But I think that that also desensitized me to negative comments. Well, that's good. Yeah. Because you can't really take any neck. You can't take the positive or the negative comments seriously. Honestly, like you were saying like even the people who like you could be dumb. But it's like you can't believe either one like both it's toxic to to like take it too seriously, I think. And it would like inhibit your growth actually as an artist. Have you ever thought about making like a parody album or like I'm like I'm thinking you could do a comedy kind of like not weird owl, but you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, honestly, I never even really thought that I would be an internet guy. So yeah, I've just kind of been like trying to make stuff and then see what happens. Yeah, stay with videos. How long have you been would you say social media famous? Wow. I wouldn't consider myself social media famous even. But I need God started in 2018. It was just me and actually a few other people is kind of like a joint account we had to kind of like post about God because we thought it was funny. And also we liked the idea of God and we thought God was trending. So we just started posting all of us to this one account and like I had no idea it would become anything. But I guess now it is kind of known at least in some online communities and within some groups of people. I think the audience that was called is cultivated there is really good. And like I don't know, like I've been online my whole life. So like I was on Neopets until like 3 a.m. every night waiting to do my daily is like I had AIM. I had my friends from Neopets and AIM. I had my space. I had live journal. I had Tumblr. I had Twitter. I have X. I was on Instagram in like 2012 or 2011. Like I've just always loved being online. Yeah. I was in this like one website called Dump FM, which is like was made by this guy called Rider Rips, who's an artist. And like it was this weird social website where you would like use it would be like an image chat basically like image-based chap. It was like the first one of that. I've just like always been online. Like I'm a Leo. So it's like I'm a performer. I like kind of like attention. I kind of I'm super artistic. Always have been kind of like putting on shows as a kid kind of person. So it's cool to see that it's like has some grip. I feel great. I'm like okay great. I feel validated I guess. And like like I was Catholic too. Like I went I sang at church as a canter until I graduated high school and I was 18 like I was an atheist. It's a teenager. But I was like still singing at mass every week. So I just feel like that kind of like cognitive dissonance between but like what I believe and you can't sing without your soul. You can't sing without your spirit. Like so yeah. So it's like I was singing at mass and like I enjoyed it. But at the same time it was like I don't know if I really like believe in all this other stuff. But so I feel like really that was the seed of like I need God in a sense because it is about like that duality between like it doesn't matter if you believe or not. It doesn't matter like if this post is something you genuinely feel or this post is something that you think is making fun of somebody like either way everyone is grappling with like the existential fact of life and like religion is just a part of our understanding of that like culturally like it's undeniable. So it's cool that I've been able to like distill that kind of idea or just feeling and like transmit it and have people kind of understand it or resonate with that. Yeah I think the real yeah. The real magic trick it seems like you've done is that sort of combination of earnestness and irony that exactly that's all me. Yeah like resonates with people in this sense that you kind of get to have your cake and eat it too because you get to resonate with the people who are religious and the people who are only sharing it because they think it's funny. But at the same time I do think that you are touching on something that is really in like a genuine maybe interest is the wrong word but a spiritual side of people that are that might be ready to accept that they you know might be more I guess open-minded to certain religious things than regular ways to like maybe they shut all that out. Mm-hmm. Yes like the in between of those two groups you said like is really what it's exploring that there is a mix you know it's not one or the other really. Yeah and it sort of tracks with I feel like in the past couple years that sort of chic Christianity has gotten really trendy. At the same time I do think that the people who maybe only like your content in an ironic sense I do think that there is that still is grounded in a very real emotion. Absolutely. I mean I kind of personally believe that anything you do as a joke or anything that you do ironically is also doing that thing in a not joke way and in a not ironic way like for example everyone could relate to this when you start saying something as a joke like I remember Yolo for instance right you would say it and you would say it like as if you were making fun of people saying it but then you just become a person saying it. Yeah exactly. So it's just like that that's how I see it. Yeah I struggled with that a lot when I was there was a period in my content where I was making like essentially gaslighting and abuse tutorials. Yeah yeah to me it was sort of touching on this place where like I was genuinely accepting that I had manipulative tendencies and that I had you know maybe not abusive is the right word but I think to an extent everybody has that kind of complexity but also you know that's one thing if people can look at it and say well that's funny because that's of course a horrible comically silly thing to ever do but how much I wonder of my audience is genuinely like consuming this as an entertained type. Yeah like actually learning how to gaslight from it. Yeah exactly. Yeah it is educational it's almost like male well I don't know what what the title of like this kind of content like Andrew Tate. Yeah I guess so that it was kind of twofold why I stopped doing it like I stopped doing it one just because I feel like that moment passed you know and sort of do something else but also I did grapple with that like you're saying whatever you put out into the world you do both ironically and actual you know literally yeah exactly and I think it's cool like what you moving from like gaslighting boyfriend manipulator to like what you're doing now actually like serves a more like politically positive function but I feel like like I said before like by critiquing authority you expose you know the world to people that maybe actually hadn't considered that no one has absolute authority or that people in these positions of power abused right with the judge that one completely like on TikTok it got like 40 million views or whatever it was and I swear to every single person thought that I was an actual judge who was on their lunch break and had just sentenced somebody to life in prison because they hadn't had lunch yeah and yeah that's a very real thing that happens like the what informed of that joke was that that's actually I mean I had a couple people quote who mean say this study isn't accurate whatever it is but at the same time it was grounded in a very real thing I think and so the fact that like people might see that and if they do think that it is actually the person in that position feeling that way that's a good thing because that actually happens you know right exactly or like maybe your pilot flying the plane is did just get broken up with and it's feeling like he wants to crash into Charlotte North Carolina you know that sort of thing yeah I wonder to how many people how many of these people are like under 16 years old yeah that's a very good point to yeah you know because when you're younger and you're consuming media like a lot of the things you're learning or encountering for like the first time like you're naive to a lot of things you know what I mean so I think that might be part of it too yeah I was at the DMV recently and this like 12-year-old girl came up to me and said she was with her grandma and she said oh my gosh I love your videos that sort of gave me like this weird pit in my stomach because I was like oh my god are my like ruining children you are Mr. Beast yeah exactly like like what am I doing to America's youth that they're seeing this type of stuff I mean I don't know so is the plight of any comedian of all time like throughout history I guess like I was curious like when when they ask you to go on SNL are you gonna do it are you gonna go on television we'll see I mean that's why I was excited too my thing that I struggle with now is performing for longer than like five second segments or however long it takes oh sure do you have ADHD definitely AAC and bipolar so okay yes well that makes for a great short form comedian I hope so like I said I never really imagine myself being an internet guy but at the same time I think that that is just in this day and age that's the best way to get yourself into the cultural sure yeah and no one knows what's coming next like things in media could change drastically in very short periods of time so I guess it's not the end obviously of your journey yes this is just the beginning well I did I don't think I we've really talked about it yet but I wanted to ask what your actual religious beliefs are now because oh well this is a podcast where I ask other people about that I mean I like I said I'm Catholic I'm a confirmed Catholic so technically I'm Catholic but I do also feel like I am confused religiously and spiritually yeah the place that I'm sort of that is that I feel like there has to be something else how they're like it doesn't make any sense that all this exists the way that it does and that's right you know it that feels like a very it like in my god I'm just like that can't be we can't just be like a big ant it'll in the middle of the universe well thank you God lovers for listening Dan thank you so much for coming on and sharing some you know vulnerable insights into your beliefs into your life history appreciate that and yep peace out everybody amen hallelujah thank you everyone for listening to this free unlocked episode with Dan Henshel if you enjoyed it please rate and review it wherever you're listening to this podcast and if you really want to support this project and help me create more content about God and spirituality join us on patreon at patreon.com/initgod new episodes go on the patreon two weeks before their public every month there's a patreon only episode and there's gonna be events and different things announced on the patreon soon so please consider joining patreon.com/initgod it's affordable there's a free trial if you like this page if you listen to this podcast regularly I would super appreciate it and thank you guys again for listening.