Stay ConnectedThe world has never been more connected. Yet never more divided. We yell at each other from inside our echo chambers. But change doesn’t happen inside an echo chamber. It’s time to get out, to stretch our legs, to step on some land mines. It’s time to have an uncomfortable conversation with Josh Szeps.
A DM Podcast
Copyright: © 2024 Josh Szeps 224787
What is the future of the media? Are we doomed to inhabit our own social-media news bubbles, tailored by algorithms to keep us “engaged”? Will readers return to old-school news outlets? Or is there a third way? That’s Substack’s bet. The platform is transforming the media landscape by enabling journalists and creators to speak directly to users.
Just as Josh was embarking on Substack’s first-ever around-the-world livestream marathon, the company announced a new round of funding, vaulting it past a billion-dollar valuation and making it one of Silicon Valley’s “unicorns”.
Substack’s co-founders are Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie, who were kind enough to sit down with Josh to discuss the conflict between free speech and hate speech, the decline of legacy media, the role of video, the challenges of living in a social-media world… and the future of their little company that’s becoming very, very big.
How does an adventurous, open-minded, well-travelled young bloke get interested in nationalism... and then in Western supremacy... and then white pride... Until he becomes so obsessed with protecting Western Civilization from Islam, that he shoots nearly a hundred innocent Muslims and livestreams the massacre to cheering racists around the world?
The official government line is that the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooter was a lone wolf. The killer himself cultivated this image. But the movement that radicalised him is a complex network of persuasion. It starts with goofy alt-right memes. It moves on to far-right forums like 4Chan & 8Chan. And it expresses itself in real-world groups like the white supremacist "migrant hunters" with whom the Christchurch shooter embedded in central and eastern Europe.
Joey Watson is a young investigative journalist who's been painstakingly exploring the far-right internet swamp - and travelling to Serbia, Austria and Bulgaria - to retrace the Christchurch terrorist's radicalisation. Joey and Josh discuss how immigration, nationalism, Islam, bigotry and the internet are being built into an ideological powder keg... and how we might defuse it.
Nick Cave is one of Australia’s biggest musical exports. But after forty years as a rockstar - and the death of two sons - he's become something else: A unofficial poet laureate and philosopher king through his online letters project, The Red Hand files.
Nick sat down with Josh in London on the Szeps Live World Tour to discuss songwriting, grief, faith... and, as a bonus, to critique some of Josh's recent episodes.
Jimmy Carr is one of the most successful stand-up comics on earth.
His hilarious, brutal crowd work is a viral sensation. His Netflix specials are smash hits. He hosts huge UK television panel shows and is currently touring the US, UK & Europe (and Australia and New Zealand early next year) with his latest live show, JIMMY CARR: LAUGHS FUNNY.
Jimmy and Josh caught up in-the-flesh in London on the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon to discuss crowd work, Elon Musk, immigration, COVID, and Kanye.
All info and tickets for Jimmy’s tour are available at www.jimmycarr.com
He’s been grilled before Congress, clashed with Bill Maher, and built a reputation as one of the most interesting young intellectuals in America.
Coleman Hughes doesn’t just write and broadcast, he also plays a mean jazz trombone, bringing the same contrarian rhythm to politics as he does to music.
During the Szeps Live World Tour’s jaunt through New York, Josh and Coleman sat down to dive into race, identity, Trumpism, and whether the Left can find its groove again.
As the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon barrels along, Josh and his long-suffering producer, Jono, cruise their rented convertible into the hills of Northeast Los Angeles. There, they track down the ultimate iconoclast, Meghan Daum - former Los Angeles Times columnist, humorist, defender of sanity and all-round cultural firebrand.
Meghan's independent media empire is The Unspeakeasy - a podcast, Substack publication and a community for freethinking women. Enjoy this sparkling ramble through the culture wars.
Rich Roll is one of the biggest podcasters in America, thanks to his irresistible blend of ultra-athleticism, Stoic philosophy, sobriety, personal improvement (don't call it "self-help"), and an infectious curiosity about what makes life worth living.
In this live-streamed conversation on the Szeps Live World Tour, Rich welcomed Josh to his new digs in a glorious mountaintop lair behind Malibu - to to talk discipline, midlife pivots, the seductions of modern distraction, and whether resilience today demands a new kind of grit.
What is your race? What is your identity? How should your kids think about how they fit in at school, or don't, on the basis of their racial or economic group? What is it really about, this game of being human?
Kmele Foster is one of the most original and humane thinkers Josh has the privilege of knowing. Funny, fearless and wise, the two young dads sat down in Brooklyn during the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon to wrestle with Blackness, whiteness, racism, parenting, guilt-ridden woke white leftists in San Francisco (where Kmele lives) and the meaning of the cosmos.
After having a falling-out with Silicon Valley, Kmele was recently appointed the editor-at-large of Tangle, an independent news website that summarises arguments from the right, left, and center. Kmele's first column was this absolute barnstormer. He also serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and co-hosts the smash hit podcast The Fifth Column.
Don't miss this uplifting, provocative, moving, mind-expanding chat.
How much responsibility do podcasters have not to "platform" crazy voices? Is there a countervailing duty to explore unusual ideas, spurned by elites? Why did Sam Harris fearlessly take on Islam, Black Lives Matter and Gaza, but not transgender ideology? Are psychedelics a portal to another realm, will A.I. become conscious, and is Sam a hypocrite for eating meat?
Sam Harris is one of the world's most influential podcasters and commentators. He burst onto the scene as a prominent atheist but has since become an elder statesman of reason and logic, advocating mindfulness and rationality through his meditation app, Waking Up, and his podcast, Making Sense.
Sam has always been a generous supporter of Josh's work and was kind enough to invite us to his private studio during the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon for a two-and-a-half-hour livestream. Enjoy this sparkling meeting of minds.
It was a sweltering evening in Greenwich Village as a packed crowd showed up at the legendary Comedy Cellar - the stomping ground of Seinfeld, Chappelle, and Robin Williams - for a no-holds-barred, live-streamed panel extravaganza.
Is South Park doing more to resist Trump than the press, or is it part of the circus? What happens when podcasting becomes the default news source? Is "platforming" bad ideas dangerous or essential? Are we nostalgic for a media era that never was? And how do you choose between marrying Donald Trump or f**king Tucker Carlson?
Josh welcomed Matt Welch and Kmele Foster, co-hosts of The Fifth Column, along with the owner of the Cellar, Noam Dworman, who has his own fiery podcast, Live From the Table. Blocked and Reported's Jesse Singal even swung by for a round of "Jew In The Hot Seat".
The room was packed. The drinks were flowing. Enjoy the fun.
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