Bill Maher sits down with Tim Pool host of The Culture War Podcast for a conversation on health, aging and the bizarre wellness trends sweeping the culture to the impact of media polarization, the manipulation of public perception, generational divides in politics, the rise of wokeness, and the cultural shifts defining Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the challenges of marriage and masculinity in a rapidly changing world, the decline of skateboarding in America, and the fragmentation of entertainment in the digital age. Go to https://www.ffrf.us/freedom or text "CLUB" to 511511 and become a member today Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/random #rulapod #ad Go to https://www.RadioactiveMedia.com or text RANDOM at 511511 to save up to 50%, today! Save time hiring with ZipIntro at https://www.ziprecruiter.com/random Get 20% off your first pair of Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins at https://www.skechers.com/clubrandom or use code Club Random Follow Club Random on IG: @ClubRandomPodcast Follow Bill on IG: @BillMaher Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/ClubRandom Watch Club Random on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ClubRandomYouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What bizarre wellness trends are discussed?
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Yeah, last October, I...
So how long were you an atheist and what did we do wrong not to keep you?
I went to Catholic school and... Oh, well. Bill Maher.
Hey, man. It is an honor and a privilege. Thank you for saying that. I know you flew in on your own dime. I can't tell you what I...
compliment that is and i and i appreciate it oh i appreciate you having me and uh excited um they told me not that they ever tell me much and i like it that way but that you don't drink so no but i'll i'll have a shot or two with you i can't tell you i'm not i can't tell you how often this happens i said it last week i think like somebody was here and it's like you know the handlers are always like uh
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Chapter 2: How does media polarization affect public perception?
For sure, for sure. There's a hyperpolarization happening among the younger generation that's substantially more pronounced than the older generation. And the younger generation is substantially more considering violence than the older generation did. So when you look at the polls, it's really interesting how the polarization expands. I can see that.
So I would say the bulk of our viewers are probably in their 30s. So we have 18-year-olds too, but they're a smaller percentage, but basically 25 to 54 is who watches us.
Right.
Got a lot of people in their 30s. And what ends up happening is, and this is true for people on the left or right, doesn't matter who you are, someone's going to take something you said, it's going to be pulled out of context. Of course. And then it makes people go nuts. So... You know, there's so many of these things that are absolutely wild for me. I don't have the worst of it.
There's other people in media that have it substantially worse than I do. Their Wikipedia pages are just rife with weird fake nonsense that's made up.
I mean, I just don't feel like anybody... uh, in this country can even presume that what people think about them is anywhere near the truth. And if you do think that, um, you're, you're very naive and people are just going to want to believe. Somebody told me just the other day, uh, that, uh, speaking of girlfriends, this one is funny.
This one wasn't in that list, but they could have put it there, but somebody, they were, they were out to dinner with a few people and this person said, uh, that I used to date Ann Coulter. I've heard that.
I have heard it.
Okay, well, but it's not true. And both of us would say that. Now, am I friends with her? Yes. And anyone who doesn't like that can go fuck themselves. I'll be friends with whoever I want. I think I proved that over and over again, including with Donald Trump. You know, I believe in talking to people. Are you?
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Gen Z face in today's culture?
Because Allison and I know each other very well, and we get along very well, and we're both very rational, reasonable people.
That's a great thing to find in a woman.
I know.
And I don't mean that—I'm not saying women are crazy. They're not. Men are also—let's put it this way. We're both crazy, and it's not like men aren't emotional and blah, blah, blah. But I don't really care about that aspect in men because I don't date men. What I care about is the opposite sex. And if you can find a woman who's sexy and also rational, that's great.
Because they sometimes, let's just put it this way, they sometimes don't go hand in hand. That's true.
You know, it was funny though. I was talking to my wife and I made a joke. You know, I said, bitches be crazy, yo, which is a line from that movie.
Of course, it's enough.
And then she goes, are you kidding? She's like, I've watched you guys out there at the skate park. You guys are nuts. And I look out the window and one of our, one of our team writers is like trying to jump off a building. And I was like, She's right. Men are crazy in different ways. Different ways, of course. We got a guy who, so we bought these things called grabbos, okay?
They are handles with vacuums that you can stick to a wall. And I bought them because they were funny.
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Chapter 4: Is marriage viewed differently by millennials?
Maybe that's why I'm sort of like somebody who both sides can talk to because I'm not exactly a city dweller, but I also don't want to live in the middle of bumfuck.
You know what's fascinating is my neighborhood from Chicago turned red. Yeah. So my audience, the biggest demographic location-wise is Chicago. And it's a weird position to be in because to see Chicago's liberal. My neighborhood was by the Midway Airport and it's a lot of firefighters and cops. And it's largely like Polish immigrant and then like white working class and Hispanic.
And it turned, it flipped for Trump in Chicago. And I think- Some parts of the Bronx too. Oh, wow. I think my politics are like, if you were, you know, I'm like a Chicago liberal, but the way things have gone, especially with like the woke stuff, This is where I end up in this position, and so does my neighborhood.
I think it's interesting to see my neighborhood reflective of my politics and vice versa.
I think the phrase I was using last year was aggressively non-common sense or uncommon sensical. And it's like I— Accent aggressively. I don't think the woke people who have the vast amount of energy, really, in the Democratic Party understand why the people vote against them. And it's like, because if you add up, like,
How many people are really affected by some of the aggressively uncommon sense things? It's probably not that many.
You had a great bit on that.
Yeah. Why are you pandering to 400 people? Of course. Okay. But when you add up these things and, you know, men competing in women's sports and like... just too much indoctrination of children with sexual ideas that they're too young to understand.
Like when you add up all these things that get in the media a lot, it paints a picture, not a wrong picture, in the mind of the average voter that, yeah, maybe policy-wise I would do better under the But these other people just seem fucking crazy.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the 'woke' movement?
Yeah, I forgot the name of the woman. This is on Politico. You can just read their story. It was, I can't remember the guy's name who reported it.
No, it's possible that, again, there's always some version of it on the other side. It's just not as egregious, I think.
You know, they're accusing me of working for the Russians now, and this is, or they tried. And so here's the story. I get contacted by a conservative personality. I've got three shows that I host, several that I have staff that host. One of them is called The Culture War. Right. We produced it for two years, Friday mornings, similar to this, sometimes debates.
And I was reached out by like three different companies who said, we want to license something you're doing. And I said, we do our own internal ad sales. We don't need to license. Some offers were made. Some of them were really good. And I said, I'm not really interested because the ad sales I can generate exceed your licensing.
So I get reached out by this company in Tennessee from a well-known, prominent, conservative personality who works for one of the big companies and said, we've secured an investor. We want to license the show. We negotiated terms. Lawyer negotiated terms, market rate. Non-exclusive license for distribution. They could sell the ads on the show.
I get the money, the licensing fee, which basically, you know, I can choose to grow the show for two years or just license it now and take the money.
You sound like you're a naturally savvy businessman.
Maybe. Well, this didn't work out too well for me because what happened was at the end of last year, the DOJ indicted some random... I say random because they're not personalities from Russians who are apparently in some Eastern European country claiming that they were funneling money illicitly into this conservative company in Nashville to then promote Russian propaganda or something.
The narrative now is... Tim Pool was prosecuted for working for the Russians.
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Chapter 6: How do politics shape personal beliefs?
Yeah, it's Tony Hawk's fault. He landed at 900, and then every millennial had to get a skateboard. Yeah. Now there's no skateboarders anymore.
Why?
No kids. Why? Skateboarding. There's not enough young... There's not enough... So, there's 40 million Gen Alpha. To be fair, like... It really is that skateboarders are, let's say this, I'm saying this in a punk rock kind of way, degenerates. And so when they found themselves in the late 2000s being millionaires, what did they do? Nothing. They bought big houses, they partied, and...
Now more than half of skateboarders are over the age of 30.
But that is the story of every generation as they get older.
But you need an industry. So like Hollywood, music and entertainment had an industry. Sure, the rock stars were nuts. The problem with skateboarding is the rock stars ran the business. So the core industries that made skateboarding big were also running the business and...
Here we are. But that is amazing to me.
Yeah.
That kids are not into it anymore. Scooting. Scooters.
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Chapter 7: What role does social media play in modern discourse?
Your fundamental rights that you take for granted here in America, you would not have. I mean, all the protesters who are protesting in Gaza against Hamas, they've all been killed.
They killed protesters. Women. I mean, do I have to say anything more than just, just if it was just that issue, how women are treated.
Are you fucking kidding me? And the narrative is, when I talk to some of these academics, like the anti-woke people, they're like, well, it's because they say that, you know, Gaza is oppressed. And I'm like... Sure, but they're siding with the second biggest religion in the world, which is authoritarian, fundamentalist. And I don't care if you practice whatever religion you want to practice.
It's fine. But it's strange to me to claim that Islam is oppressed in any meaningful way.
Well, I do care what you practice, and I fully defend to the death your right to practice whatever religion you want. just don't lie to me and say all religions are alike. All religions are not alike and what makes them different mostly is how fundamentalist they are. Fundamentalist means You actually believe what's in the holy book.
I mean, there's the Quran, there's the Bible, and they're both full of nonsense. But we have learned to wink at the Bible in the West, whereas Islam, to a much greater extent, takes it very seriously. I mean, we do not have things like madrasas here where they send kids to school and they just learn that one book. They are not studying anything else in a madrasa. That's the meaning of it.
And, of course, they're segregated completely sexually. So, I mean, what's going to be the upshot of that?
It's like a handmaid's tale, right?
It's worse. Yeah. I think.
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