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All right. Happy podcast day, everybody. Happy podcast day, man. Happy podcast day. Good to see you guys. Where are you in the world today? Every time you ask me this question, Christiana, it weighs upon my soul. No, just asking casually. Okay, this time I'm a lot closer to you than usual. I'm actually in Los Angeles. No, you're not. I am. This guy's a...
I'm in Los Angeles. I literally just got in last night. I'm in sunny, sunny Los Angeles, which it isn't that much these days. It's like it's rainy, coldish, sometimes sunny Los Angeles. Yeah. But yes, I'm here in the land of dreams, where it doesn't feel as dreamy. But it also could be the fact that I just don't have a home. These are the ramblings of... Yeah, I don't get it. Why don't you have a home? You could have like 10 homes. Okay, so I sold my place.
with the idea that I would get another place. Then I went on the road and I traveled, which was wonderful for a while. And then reality starts to kick in and you realize that, no, you need to go home. There needs to be a place where you put your stuff. Trevor, do you know how we get you a house? How do you get me a house? We get you a wife.
Because if you had a wife, she would make sure you had a house. Yeah, yeah. I mean, as someone with only a girlfriend, I can tell you right now, she would not let me not have a place. Because your wife will be like, what are you doing? You know what, Christiana? I love how you always talk about getting me a wife as if this is something you can just go to Whole Foods and pick up in the spouse aisle. You're the most famous African in the world. You can go to your village, go to your village chief and say, I need a wife. And he'll be like, Trevor, I'll help you out.
You know, this is... Anyway, I'm still on the road, you know, living that life. The thing is, I don't know if you believe a wife or a house is a good thing. I think in a way you don't want either. No, let me state for the record, I definitely believe a house is a good thing. You're listening to What Now? The podcast where I chat to interesting people about the conversations taking over our world.
This week on the show, we ask, why should churches invest in Boeing stock?
What will the National Guard find in your purse when you take the New York City subway? And can Congress actually ban TikTok? Now, the only thing I love more than exploring these kinds of questions is doing it with my favorite thinkers. So once again, I'm joined by writer, journalist, and, in my opinion, professional hater, Christiana Mbakwe, and stand-up comedian, late-night TV writer, and human chill pill, Josh Johnson. ♪
One, two, three. One, two, one, two. Okay, I am recording now. This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. This episode is presented by Lululemon. Everyone has those moments where they say, not today, when it comes to fitness. I mean, I know I do.
Well, Lululemon Restorative Gear is made for those days. Days where you want to max out your rest and not your reps. Lululemon's new campaign features Odell Beckham Jr. and DK Metcalf in their buttery soft, breathable, restorative wear. Designed to keep up or kick back with you. Visit lululemon.com for everything you need to bring it tomorrow. Rest day is the best day. Can I just say, guys, I'm so grateful...
Not just to see you, but to see anyone these days. Because I fly a lot and I have never prayed more than I do these days when flying. Because I don't know if you've noticed, every single week there's a different part of a Boeing airplane that is falling off. It was the door.
You remember that? I think it was like Alaska Airlines, the door fell off. And then this week, there was a wheel that fell off a plane that was taking off from San Francisco. And then in Texas, there was a Boeing that like rolled off the runway because the landing gear had some... I don't know. The only thing I do know is...
I'm grateful. And, you know, every time I'm like traveling and stuff, something will go wrong. Like, so, I mean, you, Christiana, like me, Josh, I don't know how religious your mom is. Because, I mean, she's from the South, right? Yes, very. Then she's super religious. We have the trifecta of religion. The trinity of like religious black moms. Yes, we're covered in prayers from all over the continent. And my mom, every time I travel somewhere, God forbid...
a plane has some issue, my mom will send me a message and she'll go, where are your children? What would you have left behind? I'm praying for you. I'm like, what?
Every time, if Boeing loses a wheel, I take shit from my mom. Now, I'm vested in Boeing, like, fixing their things, by the way. I'm like, yo, Boeing, you got to get your shit together because this is affecting my life personally. It's just, it's funny it never goes the other way because as much as our moms pray, you'd think they'd be like, that's not my baby's playing. I said my prayers today. Yeah, they never take it for granted. You're right. They never, they don't go, the prayer worked. They're like, whew, that was close.
Yeah. And it's like, yeah, but I still wasn't on it. So we don't know how close it was. I feel like churches should be buying Boeing stock because of how it is inspiring religion again.
There was a point when we were flying as people where we got cocky. Like everyone was like, hey, we're going to get where we're going. You know, they make the safety announcement. Pilot comes up. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the flight. And they'll be like, oh, safety briefing. And nobody gives a damn. No one pays attention. Now you are listening. Yeah. You know, and they're like, in case the door pops open at 10,000 feet, people are like, yeah, I'm listening. How do we do this? Yeah. Yeah.
It's wild. I wonder if Boeing's gonna be around in like a year. - I think so, because a lot of these structures are built so that there's more disruption without them than there is waiting for them to get better. - Yeah, that's true. - 'Cause if Boeing said tomorrow, we're done, y'all, we gonna do trucks.
We can't. None with wings. It's too hard. Everyone who's ever used a Boeing that still uses one would be like, guys, you got to figure out something, please. I mean, it's just made me want to get a friend with a plane. What?
Why would you? Forget the climate. Let Greta take care of the climate. Christiana. Trevor, you're actually one of my friends who could be successful enough to have their own plane. Christiana, let me tell you now, as somebody who is terrified of flying, terrified. I don't know what happened. Something switched in my life and I became terrified of flying because I think one day I was up there and I was just like, I think my luck has run out.
You know, because you go statistically, they go like, your chance of crashing is one in blah, blah, blah. And then I was like, I think I've hit the number right now. And I know that's not how odds work, but anyway.
I did all the reading on this. You are exponentially safer being on a commercial plane. No, no, no. I want a friend so rich. I want it to be like Sultan of Brunei plane. Oh, you mean like they own a commercial, like a plane plane? Have you seen Kim Air, Kim Kardashian's plane? Those are still not better than commercial planes. At least I know it's got, you know, I know the man fixing the wheels. The problem is, guys, guys, I say this with respect.
They're not paying the people that look after the plane enough. Have you ever looked out of the plane window and seen those people taking off the baggage? And you're like, air traffic control, everyone, air traffic control drives are overworked. It's particularly egregious for me as well, though, because we have to wait for the planes to crash before somebody gives more money to air traffic. It's air traffic control, people. Why would you not give them more money?
I'll even go further. I'll tell you this right now. That's a job. I feel this way about a lot of jobs. But that's a job where as soon as you're ready to quit, they pay you for your last two weeks. I don't want anybody on air traffic control working their last two weeks. Right.
And I'm the day that the birthday cake come out and then they're like, you leave it on your birthday. And then they all cut cake and stuff. And it's my flight. I want them to get paid immediately. I want them to get that last two week severance so that way they can go and enjoy their life. Can I ask this question, though? Why is it that everybody is furnished with the same amount of information about what has gone wrong with Boeing?
And yet everybody ignores it when the answer is the fact that Boeing has just been cutting costs. Do you get what I'm saying? Because, you know, normally we don't know why something's going wrong. We're like, oh, it could be this. It could be that. Oh, it could be. And here it literally is. Every single time, ex-employees, current employees, people who work with, they go, hey, Boeing tried to cut costs. They're trying to save money for CEOs and shareholders. And this is why a plane of theirs might not land.
Oh, it'll land. But it may have a wing. Suddenly. It may land. Suddenly. Yeah. It almost feels like because all of these incidents are near misses, they're kind of good advertising for Boeing. It's like, oh yeah, the door fell off, but everyone lived. Like it hasn't been disastrous enough for people to be like, now you have to fix it, which is a really effed up way to look at this. But I just think that Boeing will get away with it as long as it's just near miss after near miss. And it becomes like,
The subway, you know, sometimes the subway gets delayed and everyone got used to it. And we're like, we're used to delays. We're going to get on with it. And I think Boeing now is at the point. It's like sometimes the wheel may fall off. Sometimes a window may crack. You'll probably live. And it's just we're getting to that level where it's so normalized. We expect there to be a plane incident and we're not outraged. Well, I mean, it's safer on the subway unless you're in New York, according to like the governor of New York.
Then you're not safer on the subway. That, can I tell you, every problem in America seems to be remedied by people carrying guns. I don't understand it as a concept. And so for those who don't know the story, what's happened is in New York, there was a crime spike during the pandemic. I mean, the same way there was everywhere in the world, by the way. And after the pandemic, people have still felt, you know, afraid on the subway. And now in response to this,
You know, the NYPD has flooded the subway with cops, like just thousands of cops. It's like in Batman, remember in Dark Knight? Yes, exactly. They're just like underground, trying to find Joker and Bane.
And then you go down there and then now they've sent the National Guard as well. So the governor has decided to send the National Guard because she says she wants people to feel safe. And so they're going to have people there randomly stopping, searching and frisking people. And whenever they say random and searching...
I mean, you always know who's going to get randomly searched and first. Yeah. And, I mean, this is my big thing with it. Because I remember when Flood of Cops started. And I saw there were two cops that were really just, honestly, they were really just trying to catch people jumping the turnstile. That's all it was, right? But then I was on a train and there was a dude on the platform acting real crazy. And the cops got on the train and left. And I...
So then I was stuck with it. Oh, man. And he doing backflips crazy because he was crazy and athletic. Like, you could tell, like, even as cops, even when people with guns, they were like, he is making me uncomfortable. But nothing happened, right? Nothing happened to you? No, nothing happened. Nothing happened. But it just, it's indicative of the fact that, like,
This is my little conspiracy theory that I go with, and it happens a lot. I grew up in the South, and it happens a lot there. So what ends up happening is you have the slight spike in January of crime in the subway, right? Then it was already going down.
But then an official comes out and they say, we have to do something about this connected to one specific incident. And we're going to have this huge response to this one incident because that's how much we care. What's happening in the background is it's already going down. They know it's already going down. But using the police as like a shield, I bet you, I would bet you money that two months from now or whenever she's running for reelection or whenever she's going to come out and say that the crime in the subway is down again.
63% or whatever. Yeah. I don't even think that's a conspiracy theory. I think that's just a valid theory. That's like conspiracy theory is you saying that like they know the Ninja Turtles are real and so they're sending the cops down there preemptively. That's a conspiracy theory. This, my friend, is just a theory that could be very valid.
It's funny because, like, you know, my politics are very progressive, naturally, but I'm a woman and now have kids. And sometimes when you add kids into the equation, you start to feel differently about things. So law enforcement doesn't make me feel safer, but I would feel safer if all those cops were women. Really nice ladies carrying guns. LAUGHTER
I think men would just get shot. I'm going to tell you that right now. You're not going to change anybody's nature. We're going to get plugged. And the men being shot, not that we want anyone to be shot, are they men that are harassing women? No, absolutely. That's what I'm saying. Oh, okay. Well, then the consequences, eh? You know, it is a little strange, though. It's like there's a strange paradox in this whole situation where, you know, the mayor and the governor of New York
are constantly responding to Republicans in other cities and states. Whenever they go, you know, New York is dangerous. They'll be like, you've been to New York City. That place is Sodom and Gomorrah right now. You cannot survive on those streets. Even the rats are getting robbed. And then they'll respond and they'll be like, New York is one of the safest places in the world. And then now they're the ones flooding the subway with cops and soldiers and
I don't even know if this makes sense, but it's almost like sometimes you can't tell Democrats from Republicans in the way they actually enact policies, but it's just about where they actually are in the country. Does it make sense? Yeah. No, it makes perfect sense. And I think sometimes the reality is a bit in between. I say this as a Londoner. I generally feel safe on the tube, right? When I first came to New York 10 years ago, I felt really safe there.
on the subway and then there was a time where I did feel a shift and I just say that as a like as a woman I think when you're moving through the world it's a bit different I don't know if the solution is like a bunch of cops on the subway I think it's like I think post-pandemic social services went way down like a lot of these people have like mental health issues and they're not being taken care of and they've lost contact with their social worker and all of that stuff and I'm just like
I went to school by myself at 14. Would I let my 14-year-old daughter get the subway by herself to school in New York? I don't know. You know what I mean? And that's the thing. That's the thing. Parents are asking themselves, regardless of what...
political party they believe in. And then when they hear there's a bunch of cops, like for some people in this country, cops make them feel safer. That's just the reality. You know what I mean? I'll tell you this, because I've had this conversation with many friends that when it comes to crime, no matter where you are, because New York has a reputation of crime higher than the crime might be and everything. But if the crime is happening to me, the crime is at 100%.
Okay. If I have been in the process of being crimed, the crime is very high right now. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing, you know, I love what you just said, Josh, because there's, there's also something we have to acknowledge and that is,
Crime up, crime down is oftentimes framed as if it's universal when in fact there's certain crime in certain places that no one cares about nor pays attention to. And oftentimes I find the crime that gets, the response that it gets from politicians is because that crime was close to either power or media. Yeah. You know what I mean? So if newspapers in New York start writing about the crime,
If they start, if they put a piece in the New York Times or the New York Post or any of those, the governor and the mayor step up.
But if someone's getting stabbed deep in Harlem or someone's getting pushed onto the subway tracks deep in the Bronx or somewhere, it's not the same. It's not the same. And to your point, Josh, it's interesting how disproportionate the response will be. Because when you go to subway stations, one of the most fascinating things you read about policing and all these ideas we have of it is,
There's a misconception that crime is best fought by punishing people, where oftentimes crime is best fought by showing that people care about the places that the crimes are happening in. Yes. Do you know what I mean? Exactly. So for instance, when you go onto the subway...
I think people take for granted the fact that a clean subway that runs on time at a station that is clean and well-maintained with employees who are paid and the speakers that actually work. And, you know, people are not making announcements as if it's like Bain who lives in Brooklyn or something. Because I don't know if you've been on the train. You can't hear anything. And that's the emergency announcement, by the way. That's the train on fire.
If they also random, like let's say they're running on time, right? If they're running frequently, right? That disperses the amount of lunatics, right? Because now everybody got one lunatic. They don't have seven. You know what I mean? If you're on a station,
and everything is spic and span it instills something in people that makes them want to be a part of that and this is such a strange phenomenon in society that i feel like many politicians don't understand it's that people oftentimes maintain the status quo of the environment that they're in yeah it's it's such a simple you know it's the same way people go like oh pigs are filthy animals but they found that pigs are not filthy animals pigs are filthy animals when you put them in mud and
And then that's all they can do the whole day is just be in mud. And then people say that pigs are filthy when in fact they're not. They're as clean as any other animal if you allow them to exist in an environment that's as clean as any other animal. And I think the same goes for crime, society, people, all animals in this way. If you made the stations work, if you made everything clean, if you fixed the turnstiles, if you had lights on every station, that makes people feel like they are seen as
in more than just like a surveillance way. It makes people feel like where they are exists. And I remember I had to explain this to a friend of mine once, fun guy, liberal, white guy, like genuinely. And one day he said to me, like just really earnestly, he said, hey, can I ask you a question? He said, why is it every time we're walking through the hood, wherever it is, people will just like throw trash on the street. You know, they'll just litter. They'll just litter. And I say to him, well, you want my honest opinion?
It's because they don't feel like it makes a difference. You know, I've never been in a hood anywhere in the world where trash gets collected the way it gets collected in the rich parts or in the suburbs. And there is a big difference between throwing a piece of trash on the ground when there is no other piece of trash and nobody has cleaned the piece of trash to doing that when there is. Because then you go like, yeah, well, what's the point? What is the point? And so I'm intrigued by that. I'm intrigued by the fact that like,
The New York governor and mayor never think to themselves, hey, let's make every single subway station as proud of itself as we want people to be of it. And I think that would make more of a difference than just having some people in uniform and guns searching everybody's bags to hopefully find something or nothing that's going to turn into something else. I mean, that's just how I see it. You're right. You're right. So I get randomly selected a lot at airports. Like, a lot. Mm-hmm.
Because TSA wants to holler. They want to speak to you. You could marry one of those TSA ladies. I would actually marry one of them. Yeah, I love them. That's a boss right there. I've never, no, you know what? I've never actually been pulled over by the TSA ladies. It's always just been like some random guy who's having too much fun with a new x-ray scanner. And then they just want to like, well, can I look through your bag? Whatever. You should see the x-rays of my bag. My bag looks like something terrible is about to happen.
Everything that's in my bag is electronic. Like you see cables, my bag, if they put my bag on the local news, just the x-ray of it, you'd be like, yeah, that person has links to something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That person has links to something. Josh, what would they find in your bag? What would they find in your bag if they searched it, by the way? They would find a lot of comic books. I actually just bought two today. You're still on that tip.
Yeah, man. But you don't preserve them. You read them. Yeah, I read them. Huh. Yeah. I still, I love that you gave me that Batman one. I didn't even know comic books. Josh gave me a comic book, Christiana. It was a, but it was like a book book. Like it had a spine and everything. Oh, nice. Yeah, the collection. And yeah, and I was just like, wait, there's comic books that are this long? And it's like, yeah, Josh is like, yeah, yeah, you're going to love this. Yeah. And then he gave me the comic book and-
When I first started dating Lewis and I wanted to make him marry me, I pretended that I like to go to comic book stores. So I know a lot about comic books. Yeah. And you can get them all in the big book. And now I don't go to the comic book. I'm just like, I'm like, get this shit out my house. There's so many of them everywhere. And you just, that's what a wife does, tricks you into marrying her. And then you find out she shares none of your interests.
Dungeons and Dragons? What the hell is that? Yeah, but yeah, comic books. What would they find in your bag? Oh my gosh. Well, I'm looking at my bag over here. I have...
um nappies what do you american diapers i'm gonna use my american i have diapers yes i have pacifiers i have some breast milk because i do keep it on the go sometimes do you have used diapers ever in the bag no no no i make i make obi put them in the bin we're trying to teach him responsibility okay okay so he has to handle his shit literally yeah
My wallet. No, no. Obi's potty trained, by the way. By the way, I am trying to get Obi into some really good schools eventually. So he's potty trained. He's well behaved. He's such a great kid. All right. Back to what's in my bag. Basically, just kid stuff and lip gloss. Like when I tell men what's in my bag, they're like, OK, we don't want to know anymore. Do you know what I mean? They're just like...
No one wants to touch my handbag, so. - The most startling thing, we were going through TSA and one guy had
had an actual like briefcase like a 90s businessman briefcase I love it and I was like yeah and I was like that's a bomb that's nobody nobody has those anymore that's that's and even the TSA people were like squinting at it I don't remember the last time I saw a briefcase actually now that you said that a full-on briefcase I love it I love it that's suspicious that is crazy crazy suspicious more what now coming up after this
Do either of you two use TikTok? Because if you do, you might want to get your fix in now. I don't know if you've seen this. I mean, everybody has, right? Lawmakers are now discussing whether or not the United States should demand that TikTok's parent company
is no longer in China, which effectively is like a ban on TikTok. I mean, that's what everyone's calling it because it'll basically be a ban on TikTok, which a ton of lawmakers are for. Like Joe Biden has said like, yeah, he would consider it. Now, obviously, like Trump flip-flopped on this thing, like he always does, right? When he was in office, he said he wanted a ban because he was fighting with China. But then just this week,
He gave a pretty rambly interview on C-SPAN. You know, one of those where he says everything to try and catch everyone. Where he's like, I'm with it, but against it, but I could be for it. And I would be against it if I wasn't for it, but I'm not against it. So I'm for it. Maybe I'm not. And basically, he said he knew young people would be upset if the app was banned. And also, he didn't want to help Facebook. So maybe now he's against it. And...
You know, TikTok's days could be numbered in America. It's become really contentious. You know, a lot of young kids out there getting a little edgy right now. Well, what's life without that new viral dance, man? Hey, man, you got a TikTok for me, man? Come on, man. Come on, man. Don't be like that, man. I will say it was funny, though. Did you see this part of the story where TikTok, when you launched the app,
every user before they could even like go into the app. In fact, at some point, you couldn't close the screen unless you called. But it told every user, they said, call your congressman because they're going to ban TikTok. And then lawmakers, they were, when I say flooded, you know, on the phone lines, you can't do anything with your phone line because they said teenagers were phoning in. But some of the teenagers were phoning in. And before they were complaining, their first question was, what is a congressman? And can we please speak to him?
We'd like to know why they're banning TikTok. And I was like, yo, this is actually amazing that TikTok can get people involved in. I mean, it is for themselves, but it was cool that they got them involved in politics. I think that it's a horrific misstep because now as a senator who backed the bill, all you have to do is go see, like, see, they got they got all these kids. They got they got us flooded. You think you think so? You think you think that'll go that way?
I think that the senators who want to get this bill passed, right? All they have to do now is be like, look, whether you want to talk about we're addicted to social, whether we want to talk about whatever. It took a suggestion from TikTok and them not being able to get on the app to make them act. They don't act for anything else. I haven't gotten any calls. I've been the senator of wherever for years. I get three calls a week. TikTok told them to call and now my receptionist quit.
Because she was unindated with calls. And now I think even more so than I did before, because we were going off of theory before. But now TikTok has kind of proven the point of the people who were scared of it. Yeah, that's true. Let me tell you about TikTok and why I'm glad it could be banned. There was a phase when TikTok convinced me I had cancer. Because the outcome... Guys, don't laugh, okay?
My Zoloft could not overcome the anxiety. The algorithm kept showing me colon cancer, mums with colon cancer. Because, you know, like the algorithm gets so specific. That is so scary. And they were like, oh, I was eight months pregnant and I was constipated a lot. And my doctor just told me, you're pregnant. All my algorithm was cancer people, cancer people. And I was like, Lewis, do I have cancer? And he was like, you need to get off TikTok.
Like the algorithm like just takes you to weird places like no other algorithm. And it gets so specific. I envy people who have the algorithm. So I had a really weird thing where when TikTok first started, I have a friend who is a social media junkie. Like you name it, MySpace, you know, Facebook, Snapchat, AOL. He has been a junkie from the beginning.
And so what he would do is he would always tell me to reserve my name whenever a new platform would launch. And every time I would say, like an old man, an old crotchety man, I'd be like, I don't know what that, what is that? Tick, tick, splock and splish, splash. And I'll be like, I don't care. I don't care. And he'd be like, yeah, but just reserve your name. Just reserve your name. So he reserved my name on TikTok, right? At Trevor Noah.
But then he didn't actually, like, he just, he'd used my account, but he didn't, like, post or anything. He just had it on his phone and he would scroll and he would like things and he would, you know what I mean? And so the algorithm essentially tailored itself to him. Now, he's a white man from West Virginia. And so then when TikTok actually blew up, I was like, hey, I want my TikTok. And he's like, yeah, of course. Here's your things and take your TikTok. I was like, oh, thank you. And now the algorithm cannot figure me out at all.
Or I mean, when I tell you, everyone tells me how amazing TikTok is. I still haven't seen it. Oh, my gosh. What does the algorithm give you? I'll just get like a random video. It's like five ways that you know you're a redneck. It's like things like that. I'm serious. I'm being dead serious. But you know what? You know what's great about that, though? I actually wish that everyone had that because then we'd be on it like enough.
Because it's so specific. It's so like laser surgical to the person that you cannot get off. Whereas...
If you didn't have it the way you don't have it, you'd appreciate like one or two videos and then you get off. Yeah. The longest I've used TikTok for, the longest, and I mean ever, is probably five minutes, four minutes. Oh, wow. And then whenever I see my friends' TikToks, my brothers', my friends', I'm just like, your TikTok's amazing. I want that TikTok. It's never happened to me. That's why you're safe.
In fact, yeah, when the grand TikTok uprising thing happens, I might be the only person who can save you all. When you turn into like TikTok zombies, I might be that guy in the movie where he's the only one who could like help you because I just wasn't on it. You're like full World War Z. Basically, basically. I don't know if this is a conspiracy, but I read that there's something about the technology that it does like eye tracking.
Yeah, you know, I hear that. Is that true? Trevor, you know about tech. What is that? So here's the thing. Okay, here's the thing. It sounds a little far-fetched. And whenever I speak to the people involved in tech and the people who are actually creating it, they say it is possible. But what is more likely is that they are measuring the time between each scroll. Do you know what I'm saying? So what is more likely is when you scroll on TikTok, you get to a post and
The amount of time that you stay on it, the amount of time that you move it, the amount of time that you come back, all of that is being calculated. The thing about the eyes, no one has actually proven because they say it could, maybe it can't. And by the way, I will never be the person who says it doesn't happen because every single time we've said that, these social media apps, it turns out that they have. They were listening. They were like hacking your keyboard. They were hacking your... Like I will never be the person who says no. But I think it's a lot simpler than we think it is. It's just... And then also don't forget your...
Everything else on the internet, your cookies, like your identifying number tracks you everywhere else you go. So you go, how did they know? How did they know? It's like, yeah, but you texted your friends, you searched this, you searched that, you know? I don't know. I'm torn, to be honest with you. On the one hand, I think it makes complete sense for the US government to require that TikTok not be run by a Chinese company in America because...
Forget politics. Take Democrat and Republican away because that always messes up and it confuses a conversation. Just think for a second.
Would another country, would China allow or would Russia allow, would they allow them to have a social media foothold that literally can shape the minds of all of its people? I don't think they would. And I think for good reason. I'm not saying I trust the U.S. government more, but I think the U.S. government at least wants the U.S. to do well, I think. So on the one hand, I'm torn. I go like, yeah, I think it makes sense for them to ban it.
But then on the other hand, I'm like, man, TikTok is like one of the healthier social media platforms in my honest opinion because...
I'm like, yeah, but think about it. Unlike Instagram, it's not just giving people body dysmorphia. You know, you can learn things on TikTok. Kids are getting involved in politics on TikTok. People are learning about history. People are, I mean, look at what Twitter has turned into. It's just like a cesspool of Nazis. You know, every single page now is just like racism and hate. So I'm torn. I'm honestly torn. I don't know what you think about it because I don't think there's like a clear yes or no to this.
Yeah, I mean, to answer your question, I'm pretty sure the answer is no on China because I don't think... Is there Facebook in China? No, no. The Chinese government are very careful about just American companies operating in China. Yeah, that I know. I mean, if you take...
I don't know. I actually don't think TikTok is good for people in the sense that I think when you get these hyper curated online experiences and I'm talking, this has happened to me. It just really pushes you into your bubble.
Like whether it's your politics, your lifestyle, like your racial group, like everything I see on TikTok reinforces what I already think, believe. I have these braids because of freaking TikTok because all the black girls are getting Zoe Kravitz braids. So I'm like, oh, I need to get me my Zoe Kravitz braids and not like a black girl that's into ugly white men. I was like, let me get the braids.
I was showing my hairdresser TikToks. But you know what I mean? And I'm just like, why am I, I don't even really wear braids like that. I don't, you know, I'm a twist girl. But it just feeds you what it knows you're already like. And I think it's beneficial for people to be exposed to things that they really disagree with. I think people that are pro-dressers
pro-Palestine should be engaging with pro-Israel content. I think people who are pro-Israel should be engaging with pro-Palestine content. But when it comes to that issue, the algorithm is feeding you the extremes on both sides and there's no nuance and you'll just be becoming entrenched in your position. And I just don't think that's a healthy way to live. And I also think it's this on top of other things. It's like we have to choose between if we're going to have social media the way we have it and if we're going to have chat GPT.
Because you cannot have a thing that allows me to go to school and never read. And then a thing that just feeds me back all of my opinions. I'm never going to be anything other than the first idea I've ever had. More What Now? Coming up after this.
It is a scary world to be in. But what were you saying? You were saying, Josh, about China. What were you saying about the Facebook thing that you were going to make a point? Oh, no. My general point is just that the same things that we debate over here, other countries, the jury is out on them.
So the jury is out in China of like, if we're going to let an American company come in and affect our youth or affect our worldview the way that a company that is, you know, owned by a Chinese affiliated partner is in the U.S. And so I think that we do a thing here sometimes where we sort of devil's advocate to death, where it's like,
well, I don't know, like, would it be bad if the asteroid hit? Like, would it be bad? And it's like, no, yes, some of these things are just bad. They're just bad. And it's because we try to like quasi normalize every single idea to the point where the Overton window is so wide that we're arguing about a thing that is almost clear if you look at the way the rest of the world looks at it. I think it's this.
In other countries, and this varies from country to country, you know, it really is a spectrum. In other countries, they make decisions that will pick the collective good over everything else. So even in China, by the way, where I don't agree with most of their policies and many of the things they do, but even China will say, if children are going to be on social media, these are the only things they can see.
They have to be educational and they can only use social media for a certain amount of time every single day.
Now, whether you are pro-China, anti-China, I think you can agree with these ideas, right? It's not healthy for children to live their lives online. It's also not healthy for their minds to be shaped by this thing that's warping it or keeping them in a silo, as you said, Christiana. You look at the European Union. They go, hey, how does this affect children's brains? How does this affect their development? How does it manipulate them, want them to buy things, change their body image or whatever it might be? We're going to step in and we're going to fix it.
The biggest problem the U.S. has is while it's fighting this idea from China, in the same world, it's allowing corporations to do the same damage. Do you know what I mean? So it's interesting that lawmakers will say, we can't allow China to divide this country. We can't allow this Chinese app to destroy our elections. But the silent part is them saying, but we can allow American companies to do it if it brings them profits. Yeah.
You know, we can allow them to make people hate each other as much as possible. We can show white people every single black person committing murder. We can show black people every single white person who's racist. We can do that for profit, but we won't let China do it. And then I go, well, then what is the actual issue? Are you saying what China is doing is wrong? Or are you saying that
only American corporations can do the wrong and you don't want China to do the wrong because it's just China. And that's the issue that I have with this is I don't fully understand the argument that is being made by American lawmakers
in why they want to ban TikTok. I mean, what's hard for me just watching like these hearings and stuff is like, I can't tell what's real and what's just like political theater. Yeah. Do you know, like how much of it is just like the right being like, we need a sexy wedge issue. Like sometimes it's gender politics. Mm-hmm.
Sometimes it's like a religion, they're going to make the big bad. Now it feels like, oh, we need a social media villain. And they've picked TikTok because it has all the elements they need. It's like foreign, it's new, it's popular. And I'm like, do they really believe it? Or is this to get their base riled up? And honestly, that's why I'm struggling to have real feelings about it. Because I'm like, are they in on the joke or do they really want it banned? It's like, it's very confusing for me. So in the spirit of this podcast, I will present to you my conspiracy theory.
I think one of the biggest reasons these politicians want to ban TikTok is not necessarily because it is, you know, the parent companies in China or whatever. I think one of the biggest reasons they want to ban TikTok is because TikTok is the only social media platform that they cannot get direct access to to push their agendas in the country.
Right? We saw in the last election that Mark Zuckerberg pandered to right-wing conspiracy theorists because he was like, oh, I want to make this platform for everybody and we're going to... And then he was having meetings with all of these, you know, these right-wing pundits and bloggers and all. We saw that.
We saw that happen, right? We've seen what happens with Twitter. I mean, Twitter, come on, that's not even a... Elon Musk tries to paint himself as being this like centrist. Come on, like we all see what happens. But I think there's something in that as well. I wouldn't be shocked if the relationships they've made with the American social media companies have now swayed their opinions because who is TikTok hurting more than anyone else?
American social media companies. If you are Google, if you are Facebook, if you are Twitter, TikTok is your enemy. If you can find a way to bring TikTok down, why wouldn't you do it? And who better to help you do it than those people who you've helped in every single one of their elections rile up everybody? So I don't know. That's my conspiracy theory. I will say though, you know what's interesting about this?
is that it is pretty magical that for a brief second, for a brief second there, this TikTok ban was one of the few things that Trump and Biden seem to agree on. I think that's beautiful. Look at that. That's one way to put it. You know, social media bringing the world together. Look at that. TikTok did what nobody else could.
brought those two men together. Not TikTok being the bipartisan issue of our time. That's so depressing. That's honestly depressing. It's like, oh, we can't agree on women's reproductive rights. We can't agree on schools, but we can agree on TikTok. We can agree on TikTok. You know, in many ways, it's interesting how all these conversations we've had, all these topics that have really been in the zeitgeist over the past week, have all tapped into the same thing.
Whether it's Boeing, whether it is the subway, whether it is the TikTok ban, it really is amazing how people feeling like something is happening is oftentimes more important to them than whether or not it is happening. You know, people feeling like Boeings are going to crash and burn or aren't going to crash and burn is more important than whether or not the planes are safe.
People feeling like the subways are safer because there's a national guard or more disruptive, whatever. Them feeling that way is more important than what it actually is. And the same thing goes for this TikTok story. You know, people feeling like TikTok is more nefarious or better because it is from another country or isn't, is how people are going to respond to it. And it's an interesting one. It's like, it almost leaves you with an interesting question, which is,
Do we want to live in a world where we make all of our decisions based on a feeling that may not be true? Or do we want to live in a world where we try and find what is true and then work off of that? And then the larger question is, is anything true? And has it all been feelings all along? I don't know. Find out next week on What Now with Trevor Noah. I could just be rambling because I don't have a home.
sound like a man without a wife yeah i will say that if i had a wife i would figure this out i think if you had a wife yeah you definitely wouldn't talk like you were in the matrix because this this has been bye guys
What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions and Fullwell 73. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Ben Winston, Sanaz Yamin, and Jody Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Marina Henke is our producer. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Braun. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now? What Now?