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Notes -
Culture war - bro podcast edition.
Sam Hyde was recently on Bradley Marty's podcast where he brought former mma fighter Jason Mayhem Muller. Two whacko wierdos I love who fell off came together after a new resurgence, Mayhem has a history of drugs and likely has severe adhd like me because he wouldn't stop interrupting.
Sam Hyde accepted the anti semite, admitted he was a Christian for the first time and started the podcast with jokes like "Bradley was telling us about 14 this, 88 that". Miller acted like a total dunce, a ie collar democrat stuck in the early 2000s. I was surprised that the podcaster got a quarter million views. Recently Joe Rogan acknowledged his existence after having denied it for close to a decade.
It's nice seeing Sam be famous. He seems a little bitter, yet he was one of the only ones who didn't cuck out back when his show got canceled. Just surprised to find him on a popular podcast. This was unthinkable 4 years ago. He gets Moores Law wrong but hey, Scott and lesswrong gets tech wrong too so won't say much.
The interesting thing about Sam's resurgence is how, simultaneously, a number of people who were opposed to him are crashing and burning, notably IDubbbz, where Sam legitimately tried to pull him off the path he was on during their dueling documentaries (goddamn that was 3 years ago).
Despite how he portrays himself in his comedy and public persona, he's clearly got his life far more put-together and on a better trajectory than most influencers/youtube celebs.
You know, that is true, but also, when you watch Sam & IDubbz competing documentaries, one of the things that jumps out in IDubbz trying to encourage Sam to be more genuine and less of a character. Sam, understandably, believes if he ever did that he'd get deleted off the internet and unpersoned entirely.
One 'uge election victory later, and Sam does appear to be letting his true self come out at least a little bit more. His open letter to Elon was probably as close to an unironic manifesto for what he actually believes as we've ever seen, and is arguably responsible for his resurgence in fame/notoriety/attention.
So, not only did Sam try to pull IDubbz off the path, and IDubbz has proceeded to ignore all his advice and ruin his life, but Sam may have taken IDubbz advice and prospered enormously?
He and Fishtank got mentioned on Rogan recently which probably helped too.
I do think Sam wants to be perceived as this inscrutable, unpredictable character, rather than his true self. I think he lets his true convictions come out and play pretty often (like the Elon vid), but he's made it effectively impossible to know what his 'authentic' personality is. This is what I believe the closest example is, that I've seen.
Then there's the interesting theory that he may literally be a cryptid.
Is it unfair to describe Fishtank as a sort of lolcow humiliation show ?
Nope. But its definitely authentic about it, it doesn't hate the contestants.
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