THOUGHTCRIME REWIND — How Many Streaming Services is Too Many? Is LOTR Gay? Best Burger?

Hey everybody, this is an evergreen episode of Thought Crime, a best of some of the previous episodes we've had of some really good stuff, such as my favorite episodes, Is Lord of the Rings Gay?

Where to find the best burger, and more, some of the best thought crime debates.

As both Jack and I are traveling internationally this week, so we were unable to do a live thought crime.

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Buckle up, everybody.

Here we go.

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Love is blind.

We wanted to read it.

Yeah, no, this is an important one.

Yes.

So

first of all, I have to really plead ignorance.

Do people watch this?

Millions of people watch this.

With this is incredibly popular.

Goggles on.

I don't know about goggles on.

Why would they not watch it with VR on?

Man, VR goggles are expensive, Charlie.

So Love is not blind.

Not everyone took out VR people.

By the way, imagine the market.

They should hire me.

It should not be called Love is Blind.

It should be called Love is VR.

And they would sell like 5 million of these things.

Okay, so this was, just to remind people,

she says, I watched every season except this one, and I repent of my sins.

I've I've never even heard of this.

My wife has been watching this.

It was the first season of this around COVID time.

I remember it when I was this on Netflix.

I believe so, yeah.

It's on Netflix.

It's on Netflix.

How does this show work?

I can explain it.

Please.

Real simple.

You've watched it.

You have.

And I've had to watch it because I'm like, sitting trying to sleep.

I had no choice.

I tried to follow the storylines.

Try to follow the storylines.

I have to admit it.

Trash TV is like, you know, it just goes on.

We'll get there.

We're going to.

But you have two people that they are, you have a two groups of

men and a woman, and they're in separate parts of the house, and they have to go into rooms and communicate each other with each other through walls so they can't see each other.

And so they have to pick

a match based off of their conversations.

And so they normally talk to a handful of people before they pick the person.

So it's like a death match.

Look at this.

This looks so dystopian.

It's basically like look, it's in an octagon and everything.

It's like a sick twist on what was that old show called where it was like match game or whatever or the one that Jeffrey Dahmer went on or whatever are we back to the cannibals no but but he went on this thing the show is about cannibals you watch no there this is like a thing somebody maybe it wasn't Jeffrey Dahmer he's known about the furries

he's known about Dahmer Tyler

but this happens to be a crossover it's like one of those sick games where you don't see the person and you have to ask questions but they do it for like days yes and then they decide to get married right away.

So you're in the pod for a long time and you just talk to people.

So it's like a telephone call?

More or less.

Yeah.

I think that do they type or it's no, it's voice.

Oh, it's being love is blind is the idea.

Yeah, so the idea is they interact only by voice and then they can send each other.

They can build affinity with people.

They can send each other

notes and stuff and gifts.

But they can't send each other Instagram handles or anything.

No, I don't think they

have phones.

I could be wrong.

I'm going to get like blasted by girls.

Okay, so there is a little bit of, I've got to give them credit.

There's some creativity here.

It's not just, okay.

It's still a complete waste of time, but we're getting closer to some redemptive value.

It's interesting for the viewer because you can always tell when somebody's not going to be a good match, but they think they're a good match.

And then you waste 45 minutes watching.

And then they're like, oh, yeah.

And then you're like, you're like, oh, I can't wait for them to meet because they're going to hate each other when they meet.

Can I, of course, love's not blind.

Who came up with this stupid idea?

Yeah, it's extremely dumb.

Okay, but it's

anyway.

Okay, so I feel it's important to remind people: St.

Paul said you should only get married if you have like the overwhelming hopes for somebody.

This last season,

there was Solomon.

It's better to marry than to burn.

There was a guy who like looked, you know, you just knew he wasn't gonna like the girl, and then he saw the girl, and he was like, He's just trying to get out of it then because he like committed to marrying her.

And so, after he saw her, he's like, You could just tell, he's like trying to find a way, but he spent like five episodes trying to get out of it.

Yeah, okay, so so exposed, so so they study, they talk, and then they

commit to marriage, Yeah.

Marriage without seeing the other one.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So what happens if she's like a horse?

That's what I'm saying.

The guy showed up and he's like, I don't know if I really like below my standards.

And then he's trying to get out of it from that point.

Okay.

Because then they have to go live together.

This is incredible.

Daisy just sent this to me.

I just want to read it quick.

They aren't supposed to talk about appearance, but one season a guy asked a girl, if hypothetically we met at a music festival, would I be able to put you on my shoulders either?

That was smart.

That That was smart of it.

But you can't ask height or weight.

You're not supposed to ask about it, or like race either, I think.

You have to guess by their intonation.

Got it.

They're nasal.

So let me understand.

So then

the moment that we saw that went viral with liberal Becky

was they never saw each other before that moment?

Do they only meet at the altar or do they meet in like the days?

Is there a pre-meeting?

There's like a room.

Daisy says no, wrong.

There's a room.

She says, I'm typing.

Oh, so they meet one time before that.

There's a room where they meet, and I think they can propose at that exact moment.

They can meet if they get engaged.

Yeah, they don't have to get engaged.

I think they just have to get engaged.

So the engagement allows them to meet the person they're going to marry.

Do some people call off the engagement after they meet them?

Oh, yeah.

Probably a majority.

And then they go on a trip together for a week or so.

Yeah.

And they have to like live together, which is also.

Yeah, of course.

So then they basically live together for a few weeks.

Okay, so then what we saw and then um

they they they date in person for six weeks until they get married i just read that andrew daisy's daisy is the uh pop culture person so that then at the altar they decide what

they just they're getting married if they have

so in this clip before we get into the clip These two people invited their entire families on camera to like have this public humiliation ritual based on something that might not happen.

I think they all have to.

They're sick.

I think they all have to meet the families.

No, but like they invite them to the wedding.

That may or may not happen.

And all these people are like, yeah, we might be on camera and in front of like 100 million people.

Well, a lot of these families meet them beforehand.

So like during the time that they're hanging out before they get married, like some of the families get like overly involved.

So like really no one

a sibling will like, hey, I know this one specific couple because it was hilarious watching this guy see this girl and you could tell like he's really into her really into her and they met and then he's like oh that's not my i'm gonna he makes people still watch tv the big the big picture here which has to be brought up is are people who watch reality tv humans

trash tv this is 100

we got to get to the because we're crescendoing to the clutch

we're building it's like it's like this is we're it's an orchestra okay boom boom bum bum bum like it's we're we're building okay okay okay like we're flying down the trench towards i guarantee you most of our audience have never heard of this stupid thing before okay i guarantee you they have they're a lot of our audience has taken hillsdale Hillsdale online courses, okay?

We have an enlightened little remnant of American society.

They're just going to read classic literature, pray the Rosary.

I'm telling you right now, a little remnant.

They're studying Aristotle when half of the other audience is.

All right.

Tell us, chat.

Have you watched Love is Blind or at least heard of the show?

If you've ever heard of the show, email me, freedom at CharlieKirk.com.

Can I just, oh my gosh.

And if somebody should be taxed, you're going to have some of you guys like, never.

No, I haven't.

No, but I want to make a pitch, though, to defend the people who have included myself that have gone on the show

no there's just not very much good tv left like netflix is a barren waste so this is great so we turn to this because it's awesome there's cheap they just all they do is cheap stuff

i use netflix i used it for one thing and then it got unuseful for sign cell seinfeld reruns yeah and then they got i think they still have it i i bought them all during covet i'm like i gotta watch them hulu has frasier now oh yeah so i got hulu for frasier and seinfeld for netflix and everything else is Netflix.

Can we just pause how awful Netflix has become last five years?

It's not, you guys should cancel the subscription if you're watching this crap.

It's such a waste of time.

Have you canceled this?

No,

I do fine, and I like Seinfeld.

For me, by the way, I don't want people to complain about their financial situation, which I'm not.

I'm very blessed if you're paying for Netflix.

I don't pay for a single subscription service.

For the record, I also used it to watch the Thanksgiving football game, of which they did a terrible job promoting.

There is no way you don't have a single subscription.

I mean, well, I mean, I have like my Power Bill, but like, I don't have a streaming service.

I know it's not a subscription.

I don't have Spotify.

You do not

have a single subscription.

Like what?

A power bill is not a subscription.

I'm going to make you download whatever that app is.

No free ads here for that.

No, like what?

I don't have ads on Netflix, no?

I don't have Amazon Prime.

There's an app that looks up all your subscriptions.

You hook up.

I don't have Spotify.

I don't have...

See, I have all of these.

I'm like, I am.

I don't have any

TV.

I have a million.

I don't have like

Microsoft Gaming.

I don't have any video game.

I got Netflix.

I got Amazon.

I got YouTube TV.

I've made a bunch of people a lot of them.

I don't have like, I'm not in like Dollar Shave Club or whatever that stuff is where they like send you a razor every month.

Oh, I've got like Amazon Kindle.

I'm not on, I don't have Kindle.

I don't have Audible.

Brooks is on Xbox.

I've got Sirius XM.

I'm with Andrew.

I hate not wanting to watch a sporting event and not having it.

I.

And then that's why I have Peacock.

I get these emails from Peacock.

I don't care about Peacock, but the Peacock takes the Big Ten, which is now Oregon.

It's a whole thing's all complicated.

Prime V, I will say Prime Video is good.

I agree.

Prime is great.

You know why I like Prime?

I could purchase movies I want to watch.

Yeah.

And you keep it forever.

The best of all is YouTube TV.

YouTube TV is the best.

Yeah, it's a good idea.

Subjectively the best.

For live TV, it has great coverage.

Okay, so back to the Love is Blind.

I can't believe you don't have a subscription.

I don't think that's a good idea.

That's crazy.

You don't have a magazine subscription?

That's like cannibal.

Magazine?

I read magazines.

Are you a cannibal?

And like, I'm not subscribed to any online websites, which is why I always have to figure out how to get around people's paywalls.

Why do you even have an email?

Not gaming.

What?

Do you have an email that you're doing?

I always watch TV.

Do you always play games?

That's a subscription.

No, it's not.

That's free.

Oh, that's free.

Do you have TSA Pre?

Nope.

Why would I need TSA Pre-Check?

I almost got them.

That one is a subscription.

Almost?

No.

I don't.

What about Uber Plus?

No?

Uber eats.

I take Uber only for turning point times where I have to fly and get to the airport.

And that's it.

Uber eats.

I don't think I've gotten a meal delivered by Uber Eats or DoorDash since I came to Arizona.

I've been here two years.

Blake has turning point eats.

It's a lot better.

Yeah, it's way better.

It's way better.

It's crazy.

I can't believe this.

This is how one amasses capital as a millennial.

They avoid the 8 million different millennial consumption taxes.

All right.

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So speaking of the show, I'm trying to send.

So, then let's play this piece of tape.

So, let me understand.

So, it all culminates with liberal woman and beta male dude kind of

on the altar in this incredibly viral clip.

Let's play the longer clip and keep all of us alive, guys.

Let's play it.

I love you so much.

But I've always wanted a partner to be on the same

wavelength.

and so today I can't

add the music boom I love you so much and I want to stay with you and keep growing our relationship if you allow me

we'll see

all of America no no no we got to keep playing it no no that's not even the there's a couple more clips yeah By the way, I would have told her to get out of here and cash my check from Love is Blind and go away.

All of America lost total respect for this dude.

He just looked like such a apparently they continued to date for weeks after this.

Even she was like, I can't get married now.

But like, they kept dating, which Daisy informs us of because she's a watcher of Love is Blind.

Okay, do we have the kicker where she's sitting around her liberal relatives in the car?

Yeah, so they asked him too, like, what his church's views are, and he said he didn't know.

And

so then I watched a sermon online from his church about, yeah, sexual identity.

Okay.

And it was traditional.

I told that kid

then.

And his dad

doesn't really have much to say about it, you know?

And let's have to think about that stuff.

Sometimes I did wonder if it was surface, fun, carefree love that we had.

Equality, religion,

the vaccine.

The vaccine.

The vaccine.

Of course, the vaccine.

So I've commented on this extensively.

The guy is at fault here for A, not standing up for himself, B, not leaving her.

Jack, I know you're an avid Love is Blind fan.

What is your

take on this episode?

Yeah, no, I mean, look, this is kind of goes back to, you know, funny enough, like, it goes back to what I was saying in the other segment, where we've just got too many people in this country that have this fried mental model that are like over-socialized.

People are way too invested in politics and to their personal lives.

They bring these things out and they bring these things up as if it's some kind of like deep-seated

commitment to them.

And look, you know, I certainly want people to understand what's going on in their country, but the idea that you're going to run your entire life over what someone's views on like BLM are or some, you know, some kind of like, like, and if you're just like some normie, like that's, that's not actually a good situation for the country, right?

Like, we don't want to be so over-politicized.

We want people to be getting married and having kids and sort of going on about their life and they're having their quality of life be, you know, somewhat stable and living in a system that's somewhat stable.

So the fact that the fact that politics in general is so mainstreamed is, it just kind of shows how bad things have gotten up into this point, you know, up through the 2024 moment, the 2020 moment, obviously.

Because in a stable society, you know, people are just kind of going about their lives and you're not going to be mixing politics with like a dating show.

Go back to, what was the old, oh my gosh, the dating show on MTV

back in the day, like the original dating show.

The one that Sean Duffy was on?

Singled out.

Thank you.

Singled out.

Singled out.

And like, you would never, ever hear anyone talk about politics on a dating show in the 90s.

It literally didn't exist.

It's like, what music do you listen to?

What movies do you like?

That's awesome.

You know, and just

not a thing.

Yeah.

And everyone's chatting that Sean Duffy and his wife actually met on The Real World, which was the original reality TV show, Rachel Compost Duffy and their incredible family and obviously incredible relationship.

That actually started on another reality show, also on MTV called The Real World.

And The Real World did start to edge into the political and religious stuff, but not so much.

That was like the whole point, I think.

Because the idea was...

They try to put a bunch of people who are different.

Because Sean Duffy's season,

just because I looked him up once, was like he had they had a person in their house, like, who, because Sean Duffy was like conservative at the time, yeah, and then like they had a person who was like, had AIDS, so he was like, you know, because this is the early 90s, and so that was much more taboo then.

But Jack's right, like, the old dating shows were so much more like fluffy and just fun and stupid, right?

And, like, just like you never would get that deep.

That wasn't the point.

It was like, that was it.

The real world was their first, like, real reality show,

which really goes at the truth of this, which is the cosmic thing that's important, which is one, reality TV is actually fake.

And two, people who watch reality TV should not be allowed to vote.

Sorry, Tyler.

Yeah.

We're revoking it.

I am on, not that I don't watch reality TV, yet I will continue my jihad against reality TV.

There's no reality TV that

is okay to you?

A decade ago, I watched a few episodes of Bar Rescue because I kind of enjoyed the part where he would explain like how to run a bar correctly.

Like the business side of it was cool.

But then I realized it was all fake because I saw a preview for an episode and they were like, this bar is out of control.

And the owner, it was like a clearly staged shot.

I don't know.

Or like, he just slaps, like, she's like, why are you carrying it that way?

And he slaps like a tray out of someone's hand.

I think the survival shows are fun, but I mean.

I'm trying to think of the last reality TV show I've watched.

Is American Idol reality TV?

I feel like that's a good idea.

So I would say no.

I would say no.

I don't even think The Apprentice is a reality TV.

I disagree.

Because it's like a contest.

American Idol for four or five seasons was the game shows

teenagers.

American Idol was a good show the first five seasons.

Well, I think it was a great show.

I think American Idol is cool because we also had some from our high school win.

So that was...

Yeah, you actually had to achieve something.

Yeah, we had someone from our high school literally win.

It was amazing.

Yeah, what's her face?

That was here in Arizona.

Kaylee Reinhardt was her name.

Oh, yeah.

Denny Wright says that I I am a TV snob, and they are correct, although snob is almost overselling it.

I just don't watch TV.

I think the...

I like, I like, even though it's a little bit fake too, is like Naked and Afraid and those ones, like the survival.

There's survival.

It's cool to watch.

What is the thing?

I mean, are they going to die?

There's a cameraman next to them.

They're not going to let them die.

Like, oh, wow.

But they do lose a lot of weight.

That should be like today's fat camp.

That would be cool.

Like, yeah, no.

Angelo likes the gold mining reality shows.

What are these shows?

I never heard that.

Oh, yeah, there's like ice pickers.

Those are really bad.

I'm sorry, Angelo.

We're going to shame you.

Like, those are the ones on the history channel where they would do much time on the ice road truckers.

What was so done with ice road truckers is the entire conceit of ice road truckers is like, this is a super dangerous job.

And like, the only reason to watch is in theory, the ice could break and they would like die, but that never happens.

So,

what's the point of all Andrew says this, Blake, you play more video games than I watch TV, which is worse.

Uh, one, I don't think that's actually true.

And two,

like, who cares?

Actually, probably watching TV is worse.

I actually think watching TV could be worse.

Yeah, like, you're just literally just there inert or literally, inert, passive observer.

I think they're both irredeemable.

What I will say is,

I think the CDC or whoever, when they were doing one of their obesity warnings, they were commenting on how much

TV Americans watched, and they were like suggesting you should be more active.

And one of their ways to suggest being more active for the like be truly hopeless watch 40 hours of tv a week was try playing video games instead because you at least like move your hands i i have a different take i think video games are worse because i think veg out tv like when you're going to sleep or whatever i think a lot of people do that doesn't take away as much other than your sleep which is health concern yeah video games can have a ramp up video games you have to like go remove yourself from reality sit in a box and be there and then the other thing with video games is this is like it's so lonely.

Do you play computer games or do you play like console video games?

I play some console games, not super often.

What?

Is Xbox still around?

It's still around.

I don't own one.

I own a PlayStation still around.

PlayStation is still around, yeah.

What do you play?

So when kids say they play video games, what do they play?

Oh, that would vary a ton.

I mean, what's the most popular today?

Fortnite, probably.

What console is that in?

Those are on everything.

Nowadays, like, the big thing today is every game is on every system.

I play with Brooks.

Oh, because I grew up in a world where Halo was only on Xbox.

Yeah, yeah.

That's not.

Only Nintendo games are like that.

And then I turned 18.

I was like, this is a waste of time.

I'm going to go build something.

Yeah.

Well, Halo is still only on Xbox.

Really?

So that's not on PlayStation.

No, that's that on PC now?

No.

Maybe on PC.

It's on PC.

So not everything's on everything.

But can we play the Halo music?

It's really good.

Keep going.

Well, and the guys.

Oh, I never played.

Yeah, I haven't played it in a lot of

13 years.

We played Halo like it was our day job in high school.

That's like how we played.

So is Call of Duty still around?

I play Call of Duty with Brooks.

So I play Call of Duty, and

i'm bad but there's some fun games on there

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Yeah, there's some proposals.

There's so many now, and like a lot of them, like I will deliberately avoid because they can be such an addictive time sink.

Like they'll play, they play those like paradox strategy games where you're just like conquering the world and people will play like 5,000 hours of that.

I'll play with Brooks like Madden or a hockey game because it's like 15 minutes.

You sit down, you play a game, and you're out.

That's not Halo.

This is not Halo.

What is this?

No, the original.

Yeah, the Halo.

Yeah, seriously.

And I know that.

By the way, the guy that wrote the Halo song is like a winger.

We talked about that last year in this program.

He did Vegas.

He didn't win, unfortunately.

No, they gave it like fourth place.

The original Halo song.

Exactly right.

Okay, so what's the Gregorian chant?

Martin O'Donnell, Marty O'Donnell, he came in like 34.

Trump's Oregon, by the way.

He's in Vegas.

He was in C.

This is good music.

You know why this is good music?

It feels like you're on a home screen.

Oh, my gosh.

It feels as if you're going through settings.

It has that kind of aura.

We used to play all night long in my parents' basement.

We would sync up Xboxes and we would play,

you know, whatever that, what was was that map?

Blood Gulch and I'm trying to think of the other one.

It was like Misty Mountain or something.

Oh man.

Oh yeah yeah.

I remember that one.

We played there was one called Damn Nation that we played.

I gotta look that up.

That was incredible.

We played Capture the Flag.

One flag

now listing off random games and people are listing Age of Empires.

I do still play Age of Empress Empress Empire.

I'm gonna tell you right now, which is still awesome.

I'm gonna tell you right now because they released it.

Battle Creek.

Battle Creek, yeah, Battle Creek.

There was the big one too.

Oh, Hang'em High was good.

Hang'em High was good.

But there was this one game, this map, you can play on the new Halo because they have it and they just revamped and redid all the originals damn nation one flag capture the flag.

Okay,

so what is Roblox Roblox should be I think it's like a platform so like people can make games in it

So is that on Xbox?

I think that's again it's on like everything that's a lot of kids get really into roblox So what is the purpose of Fortnite?

What what is what is

what is the thesis?

Fortnite the gimmick of it was it popularized they call them battle royales And so the idea was a hundred people would be in a game at once.

So that's this like the Leroy Jaker thing?

No, that's World of Warcraft.

So this is like a hundred people would be in a game at once, which is way more like, you know, Halo, you could be like 4v4 at best, but this was you can have 100 people, and it's called a battle royale.

So they go till only one is left.

It has other game modes they've added over time too.

I know what makes it popular is like you can be like any character in it at this point.

So like you can be Spider-Man, you can be Mario, you can be like, there's a million different characters that you can be.

Well, and now Call of Duty is doing that.

Yeah, exactly.

So Call of Duty now, you can be a Ninja Turtle.

Great.

I just.

Okay, so.

On Call of Duty.

That's cool.

So basically,

my takeaway is that nothing has really changed.

The same games are still basically the same popular games.

Yeah, but they're really nice now.

Dude,

Charlie, I completely agree with you.

Oh, okay.

I've made a point saying that.

No, I'm not.

Please, Jack,

affirm me, because

I'm a stranger in the wilderness.

So my kids,

you know, my kids are kind of at the age where they're starting to get, you know, like video game curious.

We don't have games in the house, but they'll like, you know, we have like a, like, one of those smart TVs.

And so

they could see kind of like, you know, videos of people playing games, or they'll, they'll go through the store and look at games.

And you look at stuff.

And you're like, okay, Minecraft is just a ripoff of Legos and 3D.

Roblox is just a ripoff of Minecraft.

There's another one.

Actually, Cernovich was telling me about it the other day that his kids are into.

And I looked into it and I'm like, this is just a ripoff of all the same games again.

And then when you go and look at like the actual popular non-sort of like building things games, it's literally all the same characters that were popular in like the late 80s, early 90s.

It's like, here's another Mario.

Here's another Sonic.

Here's another Ninja Turtles and on and on and on.

And it's like, the one, uh i'll throw it out like the one that the only one that i've heard that's like kind of new is five nights at ready's which i'm not even going to get into right now but like the vast majority of games that you go out and see right now like just you know walking through the aisle looking i'm like wait a minute these are all the exact same games and characters that were around like 30 years ago

what about the only but the only like we they brought up the battle royale thing did change everything but it other than that there was like no changes

but let me list it up okay so the most popular games of 2025 call of duty i had that and then i grew up madden had that final fantasy 8 rebirth which existed

ea sports fc25 which i'm guessing is soccer

yeah and then minecraft literally nothing has and then grand theft auto is the so gta was huge when i was growing up is that still popular no grand theft auto 5 is the most successful entertainment property of any kind of all time well it says tetris is more popular no they're they're wrong GTA 5 has sold like, I think, over 100 million copies.

There's 200 million here.

Yeah, 200 million, yeah.

There's a new Grand Theft Auto coming out.

So everybody's looking forward to it.

One thing that's wild with this is it take one reason it's all the same old stuff is it takes them like you know how we can't do anything in America anymore because it costs 15 times as much as it used to same thing with video games so you used to make a Mario game with a team of 20 people and it took a lot of time which one was Grand Theft Auto V was that LA?

Yeah, yeah.

Or they don't call it LA.

It was like San Andreas.

Los Santos.

Los Santos in the state of San Andreas.

So they have not done a new Grand Theft Auto in 12 years.

It's been a long time.

So let me ask you, have the graphics gotten better in 12 years?

They look the same.

A bit, but it slowed down a lot.

It used to be you really could tell, you know, it goes 2D.

Yeah, look, the shadow dimensions and stuff looks largely the same.

I mean, even most games that come out today, like on PlayStation ⁇ they're on PlayStation 5 now, most games that come out on PlayStation 5 will also still have a PlayStation 4 version.

It's just slightly not as fun.

I don't know.

Call of Duty looks a lot better than it was a few years ago.

I wouldn't know.

But I'll tell you this.

Red Dead Redemption, is that the Red Dead Redemption 2?

That came out like a decade ago.

That came out a while ago.

But that is a fun game.

That's like Grand Theft Auto, but it's in the Wild West.

You're on a horse.

You're on a horse.

That's actually fun.

Like, Brooks was playing that for a little bit.

You can just mess around and just hijack horses and stuff like that.

So the video game I went all in on was Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

Koto Wars.

Anyone else know that?

Yes.

I I remember that.

Yeah, that was a good idea.

That was a low-target.

Yes.

At the time, wasn't that the most expensive?

Were you light side or dark side?

Charlie, you were a Kotar guy?

One or two?

I think one.

Yeah,

I tried two and I hated it.

It was definitely one.

It was definitely one.

Two was like rushed.

One did really well, and then two was like super rushed.

So it was like kind of unfinished, and he used a different

developer.

So hold on.

It was called a massively multiplayer online role-playing series.

What was it?

Kotor was just a.

I never played the online role.

What is an RPG?

RPG is role-playing games.

Which means you could have different things.

And like you level up your character, you adjust their status.

No, but there's different paths that exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then MMORPG, massively multiplayer online role-playing games when there's hundreds of people, thousands of people.

I'm not interested in that.

But yes, I took the dark side.

I think Knights of the Old Republic, I think that was like the most expensive game ever made when they made it.

It was like supposed to be like you might be thinking of the Old Republic, just the Old Republic, which was that was an MMORPG that they made.

The Old Republic was the online one.

The Tortanic, they called it.

Hold on, wait, wait, wait.

Maybe I'm confused.

Which one is which?

So Knights of the Old Republic was your one player.

It has a story and everything.

And then there was one called Just the Old Republic,

which came out a decade later and was like massively hyped.

And we won't go to the game.

So Knights of the Republic came out in 2003, and I'm looking at images of it.

It looks as good as video games today.

That is not true.

I'm sorry.

I'm just looking at images.

I think they tried to make

I think they've made this that game on VR like a maybe a cheaper version.

That was an objectively good video game, it was good, but it does not look like what they're putting out today.

I will, I will contest that one.

Like, the last big leap, I would say, like, was probably about 10 years ago.

And then since then,

yeah, they improve, but it's on the margins, and they're like, oh, you need to have a 4K TV to see this.

Yeah.

I've always wanted, so one of the games, so the games within the games, like on Call of Duty, if you've never played this, this is the only time I've sat and played something by myself, and it was with my son, with Brooks, is the zombies thing.

That is like actually creepy.

Like it gets to different points where if like you're in a dark room and all that stuff, it like creeps you out while you're doing it.

It's interesting.

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I watched Lord of the Rings this weekend, and Tyler ruined it for me.

I have to be honest.

You agree with me?

Sam, you gave in to that.

No, I don't.

You see it.

You see it.

I don't agree.

I'm saying that he ruined it.

I always used to look at it as

brotherly love.

And then Frodo and Sam, there's some very long gazes.

It's

some brotherly love.

You guys are not.

I don't want to say Tyler's onto something, but like.

To the propaganda.

No, no, no.

Propaganda once you get to the end of the day.

After Tyler,

Tyler gets in your head about this, and then all of a sudden you can't unsee it.

I'm not even saying it's right.

I'm saying you kind of infer it.

And

geez, Frodo doesn't look at women that way.

This is Peter Jackson's fault.

The woman in the woods that way doesn't look at Liv Tyler that way.

That's right.

I think you can infer that Frodo knew.

And then you really start wondering, like, Mary, Pippin, Sam, and Frodo are all sharing a room.

And you really start thinking about things you shouldn't be thinking about.

This is like a three-week long conversation we've had.

It's going to keep going until I win this conversation.

And you got to wonder, like, what are they actually doing in Rivendell?

What are they really doing in Rivendell?

Because you look at it through kind of the modern woke lens.

I'm not saying Tyler's right, but it half-ruined the movie for me.

Do you realize what they're doing at Rivendell?

Why is Gandalf going down there like a weirdo?

It's like literally

music and they're singing their elfish songs in their elfish language, and there's nothing gay about it.

No, what's Gandalf really going down there for?

He's like his little Thailand.

Like, this is like a musician.

Is Gandalf the Epstein wizard of Middle-earth?

Yes, he is.

Yeah.

That's his Tyler.

I'm not saying

throw this up.

Brian wants us to throw this up.

204.

There it is.

Yeah.

No,

I'm telling you, once you see it through the Tyler lens, it's not that he's right.

It's just you can't unsee it and it kind of ruins the film.

You guys, you guys are unlikely.

And I want to make this point that we didn't make a few weeks ago: it's not just that.

I think Peter Jackson had this weird homo-erotic approach to this because the elves are all super gay.

They're all super gay.

Orlando Bloom is like, he looks like Pete Davidson.

He's like, he's just like, he's got Pete Davidson vibes to him, which is like,

yes, yes.

And we talked about all the orcs.

There's no women orcs.

There's no female.

Like, what?

There's a lot of gay.

What do they do that's gay?

What do the orcs do that's gay?

There's no girls.

There's no women.

Yeah, so is the military gay?

Like, when we make, this is Pete Hegseth's goal to like make combat really gay?

Is that the goal, Tyler?

The story itself, the story itself is not necessarily homoerotic, but there's like gazes that are like half a second, two seconds too long, and then like the whole like, Sam, I'm so glad I have you with me.

It's like completely unnecessary extra lines of dialogue.

I'm sorry, I like I re-watched it and it's such a good movie and it's so amazing.

But if you kind of go back to watch a movie 20 years ago through modern, ultra,

like, let's just say, gay lens of film, you see some things there.

And you go, boy, if that was made in 2025, it would be broke back mountain of Mountain Day.

It would be awful.

Yeah.

This reminds me, this reminds me of what happened with Abraham Lincoln, right?

So he had this really close friendship with a guy named Joshua Fry Speed.

And this is before

he was president, like well before.

I sent the old-timey image image of joshua frispeed but there was in 1926 a biography of lincoln by carl sandberg alluded to the early relationship lincoln and his friend joshua frispeed had as having a streak of lavender and spots soft as may violets uh and that's kind of reminds me of like a really good description of uh from

that's ian mclellan that's gandalf yeah gandalf is gay i forgot

yeah yeah

yeah but like I also call it like, this is, you know, we're changing history here.

I mean, I can guarantee you that maybe the movie's a little bit like homo erotic, but like

the books and the original Grand Mars.

He's the Grand Marshal.

He's the Grand Marshal of the Gay Parade.

Yeah, but that's modern,

you know,

that's not the way the books were written.

That's not the original intent.

Oh, geez.

I know.

You guys are, when you accept this framing, you are giving in to

the gay industry

complex.

I never thought it at all my entire life.

And then Tyler mentions it, and it half ruins it.

If you let them do it, if you let them get away with it, they're going to make George Washington gay.

They're going to make Jake gay.

That's why I brought up Lincoln.

So he had a,

like, he has four kids.

He was in a long relationship with his wife.

What was her name?

Mary Todd or whatever.

And he had a history of having romantic relationships with other women before that.

I don't, I'm not sure they were physical, but the point is, everybody thought he was heterosexual his whole life.

And then we get to like 2020, and all of a sudden he's gay.

So I do want to like make space for the fact that men can have intimate, non-sexual, very heterosexual relationships.

And I think before the gay agenda took over modern pop culture, nobody would have thought differently about it.

Stop it, Ryan.

One of our producers keeps putting in very inappropriate pictures.

Anyways, what it's worth.

We have to make space for the fact that well, I mean, this is a real conversation, though, because, and this, and this does tie back to Pete Davidson, because you know, his like this, you know, growing up fatherless thing, obviously, no fault of his own, his dad died in 9/11, whatever.

But, like, this entire feminization of males, I think the feminization of males in general has made it impossible for guys to have like those old school, you know, guy best friends because people look at you and question if you're gay.

So when you create a world in which that's so prevalent, I think it's harder to be,

it's harder to have like a best budget.

And this actually, I've talked about this recently with friends.

It's like, it's actually hard in general for men to get together and do anything.

Like kind of the old school days, it was like men used to get together and do bowling leagues and poker nights and da-da-da.

And those things happen, but I don't think they're nearly as prevalent as they were, you know, many years ago.

And

I think that's like, this is all part and parcel to like, again, Hollywood, everything, just like pushing the gay agenda, which, you know, may or may not have started with Lord of the Rings.

So, you know, just seeing that.

I totally agree.

I totally agree.

I don't know if this is going to help my case or hurt it, depending on, but I'll never forget when I went to Italy.

And, okay, so it's apparently going to hurt it based on Blake's reaction to Italy.

But I remember going in Italy and there would be men holding hands, walking down the street, just holding hands.

And they were, I asked, I was like, Are they gay?

And they're like, no, no, no, they're straight as an arrow.

Like, that's just men in Italy.

They'll just hold, like, if they feel close to another man, they'll just hold each other's hands.

I'm just saying, I'm just saying what I saw.

Yeah, but that's what I think.

That's what I think I've been saying.

I'm saying is through a 2025 lens, you watch the movie 20 years later, and it's just you can't help but think because we look at all of that stuff as

homoerotic and gay.

Thanks for ruining a childhood favorite, Tyler.

Really appreciate it.

Oh, no, no, he completely wrecked it.

Well, I mean, it wasn't

somebody had planted that in my mind.

But this is how it happened for me.

I watched during COVID, I downloaded all the trilogies.

that existed because there was like so every night i would just watch start watching one of the trilogies I watched literally every movie that had a trilogy.

And I downloaded Lord of the Rings.

I started watching.

I was like, man, this is really gay.

I can't watch this.

And I like shut up.

I downloaded all three.

I paid for all three movies.

And I only watched the first half of the first one.

Now

thanks to Andrew's Italy's super straight thing.

I'm looking up Liberace to make sure he was, in fact, Italian.

And yes, he was Italian.

And he put a big candelabra on his piano.

And he insisted he was straight his whole life.

And then he,

well, he died of a condition not associated with that.

Well, I'm just telling you what I saw.

And men in Italy walked down the street.

Just remember.

And if you watch the movie closely, near the beginning at Bilbo Baggins' 110th or 111th birthday, Sam was really nervous to go up and talk to the ladies or the woman, so he needed like an extra thing of beer and had to be thrown into it.

I'm just saying straight.

That's straight.

Like, gays are great at talking to women because they have like women brain.

Wait, hold on.

Not always.

Why would a gay dude be nervous about talking to women?

What's he worried is going to happen?

A lot of dudes are.

That's so cliche.

It's a shtick they used in the movie that men are nervous of talking to women.

Only a certain subset of men are nervous.

You're not nervous to talk to

Marion Pippen.

Hey, I will tell you that if you go watch Top Gun, the original, like, go watch that for Homo Oh,

you're going to make Top Gun gay for Charlie now, too?

You're ruining everything later.

I mean, Top Gun is objectively homoerotic.

Andrew,

you are putting this conversation in the danger zone.

You are on a highway to the danger zone right now.

Yeah.

This is not.

I'm telling you, there is a reason why there's a lot of rumors flowing around about the lead in that film, Tom Cruise.

I'm just saying that.

What else are you going to ruin for me?

Top Gun, The original one.

1980s Top Gun is the most homoerotic movie ever created.

It's a fact.

You're just going to come in.

Every week, it's going to be a game.

You're also going to assert another movie is gay.

You're going to be like...

I mean, Star Wars is gay.

The Godfather is really kind of like...

It wasn't really the five families.

It was kind of like a gay conclave that was running inner-Italian mafia.

Yeah, you're going to be like the good, the bad, and the ugly gay.

You're going to

citizen cane gay

citizen gay

no it's not under every rock gay so rosebud was not actually his sled growing up rosebud was a secret lover that he had during college yeah charlie don't look up the slang term don't look up slang terms for that word just that's all i'm gonna say clearance uh man

you can't you can't touch

You cannot touch It's a Wonderful Life, okay?

You cannot touch it for a while.

Okay, hold on.

I mean, Top Gun is like, this is not me breaking news.

Everybody knows Top Gun's home order.

No, I just

debt one.

He's right.

You're going to get it.

He's right.

It's gay.

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I googled the gayest movies that aren't explicitly gay, and also on there is Wizard of Oz.

Oh, that's like that's a different one where whether that movie is gay or not, gay people are obsessed with Wizard of Oz because gay men love Judy Garland, I guess.

The more you know.

I also think that there's that connection, the same connection with Lord of the Rings as you have

with the small people.

If you look up like gay icons, I think Judy Garland is literally the first result.

It's

kind of strange.

Oh man, this is getting way too deep into the lore.

We should probably hit the evac button to the next topic before every it'll turn out everything.

Everything is human.

This is why people pay the big bucks.

Hold on.

Hold on.

This is top 10 macho blockbusters with hidden homo eroticism.

Number 10 is Ravenous from 1995.

I've never heard of that.

300 is number 9.

Number 8, Top Gun, 1986.

What are you talking about?

Number 7?

Come on.

Yeah, well, because it's all these dudes running around.

Yeah, it's called like dudes who are murdering other dudes.

Yeah.

All right.

A nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy's Revenge from 1985.

Tango and Cash, 1989.

X-Men First Class, 2011.

Yeah, X-Men's kind of gay.

We're corrupting the authorities.

We're out of 1959.

Yoma 63.

I feel like I'm being corrupted.

I never saw gayness in Top Ben.

This is going to mess with him.

You're destroying our audience.

Ben Hurd, 1959.

I could see that.

Fight Club, 1999.

I think about Fight Club.

Fight Cup's kind of gay, yeah.

Yeah, Fight Club.

I have not actually seen the Fight Club movie.

I think I'm the only person born in my year to have not seen it.

That's a perfect example of a movie was that was directed at men that men like boys were supposed to like that had severe gay undertones for sure yeah i wrote the book the book is

like because they're like they're they need like camaraderie that's just like what a gang is like a you know i just i don't know if i agree with this at all No, there's a, there's a, I actually, because I got into that after I was reading, because we were talking about gay movies, because that's, this is how this came up, and I got to Lord of the Rings.

This was one of the ones, the Reddit threads I read was all about how Fight Club has all these like, it's tons of

undertones like throughout.

And it was like planting in like boys' minds all like in the 2000s or 90s or whenever it came out.

Well

we've probably ruined everybody's night here.

DJT 2020 suggests that just all acting in fiction is gay, which was kind of what the that is like the true classical take on it.

The ancient Romans considered actors the equivalent of prostitutes, basically.

And maybe we need to bring that back.

Well, I mean, if we go far enough back to the Greeks, it was only male actors, right?

So

that would

probably attract a certain type of male even back then.

Okay, let's go really quick.

Who wants to take the what?

Jack, you're awfully passionate about this

in-and-out Whataburger thing.

Go ahead.

So just I'll set it up with some context here, which is

someone put up a billboard to troll In-N-Out because I guess which burger was it that did it?

They like beat In-N-Out.

Yeah,

it started in Santa Barbara.

Actually, Bonina.

Alrighty, so Habit Burger.

That's the name of it?

Habit Burger.

They beat In N-Out as like the number one tastiest fast food burger, and now they're trolling In-N-Out

by putting up a congrats on number two billboard.

But I just wanted to have that context.

So I don't know what that was.

So the

yeah, I was I was in the time machine there for a second, boys.

But no, now I'm back.

Now I'm back to America.

So look, this is kind of what, you know, funny enough, JD Vance and Tucker got into this the other when I saw them in Hershey regarding the quarter pounder and the Big Mac.

And JD was arguing that the quarter pounder is better meal because you get more meat.

And Tucker was like, Yeah, but there's no special sauce.

And JD responds,

he goes, Tucker, you have been manipulated by the elites.

Special sauce is nothing.

It's all about which burger has more meat.

And that's kind of where I come down on this, that water burger just has more meat to it, that it's got more meat than In-N-Out.

So I'm like, I don't know.

Like, I just, I feel like I like that burger, man.

Charlie, are you allowed to defend In-N-Out?

Not really.

I'm on this weird diet right now, but typically um the in-n-out is the best and tyler you have to admit arizona became a better place when in n out came here so in and out is if you're a west coaster especially growing up now it's kind of like it's it's everywhere now they i think they just opened up in n-out good for them by the way open up in in n out in tennessee but when i was growing up it was like we like longed to go to every time we go to california you long to go wait and line at in-n-out and just go to in-n-out and and everybody did that.

That still kind of exists for people who are on the East Coast for the most part.

But, like, it was

if you asked an East Coaster about In-N-Out, nobody really knew what it was at all.

Like, no one ever, like, pre-social media, all that stuff.

So, it was like really the pre-era of it was, and Andrew can probably add to this too, being from Nevada.

If you're from like Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, you know, probably like Utah and like other parts, people would go, and that was like part of your experience.

So it was like culturally part of visiting California was In-N-Out Burger.

So I would, I actually, the way I view In-N Out Burger is different than probably how younger people view In-N Out Burger, which is that it has a taste that's associated with like memories, like especially like vacation memories and beach memories that

you can't break.

But people who don't have that appreciation for it, that like that pre-era, like it just has a different meaning to you.

So I love In-N-Out Burger because it has like all these memories.

It's straight up California.

Like, it's, it's, it's like invariably attached to that.

Like, when they came to Arizona, it was like the biggest deal ever.

When it, when they first opened up the first restaurants in Arizona, it was like such a big deal, and it still is.

I mean, you go to In-N-Out, you go to any In-N-Out Burger any night, it's like Chick-fil-A, Chick-fil-A In N-Out.

It's the longest lines that you'll find in the entire state.

But the taste, I still, every time I taste it, the spread, it's like I think of being in California, the beach, I can almost like smell like, like, the sea air.

This, this is an embarrassing story.

In 2016, my dad,

I was out of the home by this point.

My dad flew our family.

So a lot of my siblings were still at home, but he's also like, Blake, I'll buy you a ticket.

You have to come with us.

And he flew our entire family to Los Angeles.

This was the first time I had been to Los Angeles so that we could go visit the Reagan Library and the Reagan Ranch, which is definitely like the most I am a baby boomer conservative thing that my family has ever done.

But as part of that, we ended up going to In-N-Out, I think, two or three separate times because our Airbnb was close to one.

And it's as you describe.

It was very long lines.

This was right when I think the cult of In-N-Out was really becoming a nationwide awareness thing.

And yeah, we went there a bunch.

I did like In-N-Out quite a bit.

I don't eat enough fast food burgers to have strong opinions on which one is the best.

To be honest, I usually get chicken sandwiches if they offer them.

My favorite burger that I actually eat regularly, we have a place here in Phoenix.

I have no idea if they're elsewhere, but Cold Beers and Cheeseburgers.

They have a peanut butter and jelly burger on their menu.

And every time I go, I order that.

And I always tell them,

is the food good there?

This burger is good.

I always tell them, don't wuss out on the peanut butter and jelly.

Like, really, like, slather it up.

And they do when I tell them to.

And it's kind of disgusting.

You end up with peanut butter everywhere.

It's a little gross, but oh, oh, it's satisfying and delicious.

And it's even more delicious knowing that Charlie will never be able to eat one.

That's right, Blake.

That's really sick and sadistic.

All right, everybody, I have to go and do some stuff here.

Go support your local In-N-Out.

Get it animal style.

Double-double.

Get the secret sauce.

Extra pickles.

Animal style is incredible.

It's incredible.

Animal style is incredible.

Here's the order:

get two four by fours, animal style, protein style, extra secret sauce, extra pickles, extra peppers.

Hurt ear first.

God bless.

Keep on committing thought crimes.

We'll talk to you soon.

Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

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