Episode 432: We should turn off the internet for 5 years for everyone
Summary
A straphanger proposes shutting down the internet for five years because "we lost our privileges" and everyone's brains are too rotted. Kareem pushes back hard, invoking American freedom and comparing the internet to gun rights. The stranger offers a gradual return: email after one year of good behavior, streaming stays intact, but social media goes dark. They debate what people did before: throwing rocks versus reading books. Then things get weird. The conversation pivots to conspiracy theories, landing on the take that QAnon functions like Lord of the Rings for the right, complete with deep lore and online forums. The stranger even connects Q to Eru Ilúvatar from the Silmarillion. Kareem jokes about hand-drawing memes and delivering them in person. It's unhinged, nostalgic, and somehow both serious and completely absurd.
Full Transcript
So, what's your take? We should turn off the internet for five years for everyone 'cause we're grounded.
100% disagree. No, no, no. Trust.
I'm sorry, pal. I need the internet every single day. We lost our privileges. We've our brains are too rotted. We need to clear it out and then we'll be fine.
What are we going to do? Everything that we did before. If you want to like—
Throw rocks. No, like read a book.
Read a book. Reading is fun.
Reading is fine. Look, how am I supposed to make the show?
You get a TV show. Duh. But it's not streaming.
Streaming is fine. It's like social media and like that kind of stuff. I'm going to come over to your house with a with a bunch of pictures of memes that I hand drew.
Isn't that lovely? You get to meet with your friends and you draw your memes and you show them to people and then they make a photocopy and then you show it to other people. Look, I'm an American so I believe our individual freedoms. My gun is the internet and you're threatening take it away.
I'm not taking it away forever. I'm just saying five years good behavior. You get some stuff back. Like you get you get email after one year. If you're on good behavior.
If you don't spread conspiracy theories like without the internet. There was conspiracy theories before the internet. Remember when Marilyn Manson took out his ribs to suck his own? That was true. That was that was real.
I think many of the people that believe in conspiracy theories are doing it for the bid. I actually don't think anyone believes QAnon.
Oh, I think some people do, but I think that's still fun. I think QAnon is like being a nerd. Like I'm a huge nerd. I like the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and that and I'm like QAnon is the same thing 'cause you're making up like a world and it's like there's all this lore and you can go into forums online and learn more. QAnon is Lord of the Rings for the right.
Yeah. If you're in QAnon, I would love to recommend to you Lord of the Rings is Q Frodo. Q would be more like Eru Illuvatar who is of course the creator of the world and you never really see him. Eru is he's in the Silmarillion. You got to like you got to dig deep to find him in the same way that you got to dig deep into QAnon to find you—fuck him in.