819: Laughter vs. Lunacy - Redefining Extremism in the Age of Woke Culture

Brian Nichols  0:00  
I'm here to Indiana to visit some friends. And it was it was right there during peak COVID and 2021. And, and I, you know, I'm watching all the the mask mandates and they were starting to, to get a little more toying around with the idea of vaccine passports for restaurants. And I came out here to visit and this is of course, in the summertime. So the fact they were still even doing this was insane. But ended up coming out here to to Indiana, and I I'm just flabbergasted at the just the normal, the normality it was it was it was stunning. And I raise that up to my friends. I was like, has it been like this for a while they're like, literally, we had three months of people being a little weirded out by COVID. And then after that it was done. Like it, there was nothing else.

Matt Edwards  0:52  
Yeah, that's what happens in the same part of the world.

Brian Nichols  0:55  
It's insane that that there was so many folks who just jumped on board. And that I think that for me was the last straw with with Philly was seeing how quickly how quickly they were ready to just jump on board with what the governor said. So like, we had Tom Wolf, who, who made the Edict of who was essential and who was non essential. And I remember just sitting watching that on TV, and I'm like that that feels like you know, in Star Wars where the whole how Liberty dies, with thunderous applause moment. That's what it feels like. And it really turned into that. And then I just see everybody else who began to this group thing, and they're like, no, no, you got to listen, you got to do we're doing this to save lives, you know, with the saves one life. What was it 15 days to slow the spread? That was the narrative. And I was like, Okay, time to start looking at real estate.

Matt Edwards  1:52  
So are we live right now? Now that it's for? Is it like out there?

Brian Nichols  1:55  
Yeah, I think we are good to go. We're actually gonna go ahead and get started. I think as people start coming in here. So for folks who are joining us here in spaces, this is an exciting, first for pretty much all of us from the amp America team, doing our first spaces. So thank you for joining us. And we're really excited to go through and talk about today's specifically, a really cool new cartoon series that just came out here on amp America and exclusive. And joining us to talk about that is Matt Edwards, he's one of the producers. So let's dig into this the extremist files Matt, before we kind of talk about the genesis of the extremists files do us a quick favor, introduce yourself here to the audience here in our spaces. And in what what kind of was the the thought process behind getting the extremists files rolling?

Matt Edwards  2:52  
In Thanks, Brian, and, and welcome, folks. So I have spent a career in Los Angeles and Hollywood working in independent film, television, digital media, and just bandying about the the classic freelance work that you could get. But I did pretty well for myself, because I'm now looking back and consider myself like, Hey, I made myself a career, they're doing this stuff. So. So it's great. That being said, it brought me all the way to the point in my career, where I really wanted to dive into, you know, I really took to Andrew Breitbart, its popular phrase, which is, politics is downstream of culture. And being somebody who has been, you know, pretty much conservative, right? Leaning free market guy, my entire adult life, I, I really wanted to make a difference, because you know, spending spending time working on set, and that's what I did, as a producer, as a first assistant director, or a director, you spent a lot of time on set working in Hollywood, and just, you know, everybody's free to, to talk, whatever they want and discuss politics and social issues. And it's true, the prevailing thought in Hollywood is all on the left side of this perspective. So if you want to keep working, and you want to get along with everybody, you just sort of either keep your mouth shut or you kind of you know, maneuver your words carefully as you collect go from job to job. So it really got a tiring and I really wanted to make sure that what I was doing what I was contributing to the world was was something that that I could I could get behind in terms of my worldview, so I started actively seeking more like minded folks to work with. And long story short actually met Seamus Coghlan. A few years ago, I mean many years ago now and because he was a guy who's who ramped up starting starting to do freedom tunes. And, and I was in the storytelling space obviously. And so when we hooked up had a few conversations and met up a few times, we always, we always, we always got along. We always liked each other. And we thought, you know, hey, maybe someday we'll we can work on a project. So flash forward to, you know, getting past COVID. And going through what we all just went through, I find myself in North Idaho with my family, hunkering down and doing good work here in Idaho, which we can get into a little bit later. But But this opportunity came up where I, you know, we had some funding to launch something that dealt with the narrative of extremism. And the idea of a partner that I was working with at the time was, let's see if we could find a cartoonist that could make it like a cartoon or some sort of series that dealt with this. And so my first thought, of course, was Seamus. So I called up my old friend Seamus, I said, I pitched him on the idea. And he was down, he was gung ho for it. The man is extremely busy. I have no idea of he'll pop into this space tonight. Because he, he is, he's hard to pin down. But that's because he's, I mean, if you guys are familiar with his work, you know, give him a thumbs up or a big, big 100 or something like because that guy turns out amazing content. He's like, it's like South Park, you know, I mean, the guy just, he's on top of the of the narrative, and just and is able to turn out content. So anyway, we got together and, and bandied about a few different ideas. And, and this was what came out of it. So I'll stop there. And I know that was a lot of information at one time.

Brian Nichols  6:34  
No, this is great. And really quick, before I kind of go through some of the things you highlighted there, Matt, really want to shout out to the folks who are joining us today. Thank you for for hanging out. See, we got surly here. We got John Tim's joining us. So thank you, Renzo. Thank you for joining the AP America spaces here on Twitter. We're really excited. We're gonna do a q&a, by the way, as we get towards the second half of the conversation with Matt Edwards, producer of the extremist files, which is a new cartoon being exclusively aired on AP America, which we are very excited to be a part of. I know, I have my show here, The Brian Nichols Show on AP America. And it's funny, man, we were just talking about what you were saying earlier, the idea of politics being downstream from culture, and how important it is to to not only to not only address the culture, but to have a leading voice in the culture to create culture. And, and you Seamus, I love that you brought Seamus to this project, because Seamus is just an absolutely amazing, amazing mind when it comes to being able to take some of these very controversial ideas sometimes and break it down to sometimes their most basic level, but in such a way that is so easy for the consumer to digest and understand and appreciate. And when I was on Tim Kass, and I sat next to Seamus and I mean, he had me rolling, you know, laughing because he just he's so quick. He's so witty. And you know, as you're looking at the extremists files, Matt kind of talked to me about what did you What did Seamus bring to the table from kind of that creative standpoint to help add his own his own flair to the project and really, in your opinion, bring it over the top?

Matt Edwards  8:20  
Oh, I mean, the guy, the guy's brilliant, and I you know, he steals the show, anytime. Anytime he's around, he's a guy. one liners, he just, you know, he drops bombs all over the place. So he's, he's hilarious. And, and he's such a sweet man. He's a sweet, sweet guy. And he's very, he's very, you know, he's very meticulous, with with what, how he wants to approach these things. And so when we, when we got into this, it was okay, so, you know, let's deal with this narrative of extremism because everybody's on the right is being called extremists for things that were normal, you know, like, like we used to, we, you know, for those for those of us who were, you know, living 10 years ago, and thinking the same things and doing the same things, like all of a sudden that's now considered extreme. So if you're, if you're, you know, if you feel like it's, it's ridiculous to put a mask on a two year old child as they as they go to daycare, all of a sudden you're your grandma killer by

Brian Nichols  9:17  
the way, doesn't it? Doesn't that just feel weird? to even say like otter out loud that that was even something that happened, like unmask

Matt Edwards  9:24  
Oh, two year old. Yes, exactly. I mean, to you and me, of course, but there are still people today that say, Well, that's what we have to do. And we'll do it again. Yep, my friend will do it again. Harder, harder this time, right. So so so when we're sitting around, and I say sitting around because you know, we're meeting of course over nowadays everything's over zoom and everything but but when we're getting together trying to figure out this series, and and it really was looking at at okay, well who are the real extremists if we're looking at the world today, it's those who are forcing, who are forcing masks on two year olds? Or who are forcing you to take an experimental treat medical treatment, right? Or even outside of the COVID world, those of you who would say you are, you're not allowed to art, you know, to defend yourself in public, like you can't walk around with a firearm, you can't. In fact, we have to we have to ban firearms from schools, you know, I'm a big, I'm a huge, huge proponent of removing gun free zone signs from schools. I mean, that's like a target, like Target practice, right? I mean, there's all these things that just it's common sense for those of us that value, individual rights and freedom, and to just want to live your life. And so all of these all these tyrannical attitudes are like we're sick of it are absolutely sick of it. So it was really easy to kind of flip the script a little bit and say, Well, who are the extremists, and in banding about different ideas, it we settled upon, okay, let's take a classic buddy cop. formula that you see in movies, you know, the, the old veteran cop, and then the rookie cop, you know, we've seen that all the time, right. And so we said, you know, let's set this in, in these in these agents, these government agents. So you've got Jack, you know, who's the sixth, you know, very extreme agent, and then you got Jane who's new to the force of a very reasonable, and, and let's send them out into the world. And there's no shortage of of extreme examples that we could, that we could, we've already touched on a few. And as you see, in the first episode, that launched, you know, the we hit, we hit a bunch right off the bat dealing, especially dealing with COVID. And so and so the process really was just sitting there with Seamus and, and going over these ideas and picking out some stuff to work on. And then honestly, like, you walk away, and you reconvene in a week, or two, and Seamus has a script. And we're, you know, we go through the first draft of the script and find the jokes, refine, tweak things, find good buttons, find moments where we should end it, or extend it with a goal of making making this two minutes, you know, and, and then once once the script was set, Seamus, his team, you know, they're like, like we've seen before with freedom tunes, they just go out there, they, they animate, they, you know, we went through character design, we it was, it was very, it was a very conscious decision to figure out, you know, what, what these folks were going to look like Jane and Dick and Jane, were going to look like who you know, what the children would look like, what adults would look like, and how they would and how they would come across the background. I mean, everything was everything was was built out. It wasn't just, you know, grabbing stuff off the shelf, generically off Canva, or something, this was like everything was meticulously looked at. And we did a few we did a few tests with with different styles. And and then we were pretty excited to to have landed on on what we have here. So so once you know, once you have a script, and that went into into production, it was it was time to work on the next one. And and that's where that's where we that's where we land. Great

Brian Nichols  13:12  
stuff, man, and welcome to some of our new listeners here in our AMP America spaces. Welcome to Clint, welcome to Matt, welcome to EQ Mom, we are going to have some listeners join here shortly. And then afterwards, we're going to do an open q&a. But But before we get there, man, I do have one last question to wrap up my interview portion. And that is, you know, this, this feels like the start of something that could be bigger, I feel. And you know, I'm really excited to be part of the amp America team. I know you're part of the IP America team. And, you know, looking at where where the extremists files is today, where do you see it growing? What's kind of the the vision for the extremists files? Could you could you give us a little bit of the preview of what's to come?

Matt Edwards  14:01  
Well, as we as we go through the coming weeks, you know, we'll have we'll have some more episodes coming out, which I'm really excited about. The next one is going to be is really is really good. And it's owned for me. It deals with school boards. And I have my own local battles with my own school board here. But that being said, I What, what Seamus? Well, I'm really a champion of Seamus, like, I feel like I should, I should I should be an agent here and really pit Seamus, you know, to the entire world here because what Seamus has been able to do over the years, is like we said earlier, he comments on brilliantly on everything that's that's going on in the world and he does it rather quickly and on his feet. And it takes a lot of work. But what we I feel like what we've created here is something that is is is is a is almost a proof of concept for a larger series. If you think about American Dad or family guy or the Simpsons or Bob's Burgers, any one of these of these more long form traditional long form animated sitcoms. This is a no brainer. You know, I mean, this is a no brainer. Because it's, it's a, it's funny, it's truly, truly funny. And if you even if you're somebody who was like all gung ho about all the COVID pandemic restrictions, and you're coming out of that going, Yeah, that was kind of that was kind of wild, you're gonna laugh, you're gonna laugh. And that's the goal here is to entertain. But but so there's no shortage of that in terms of it being funny and it being being able to be built out but but it but if you just look at the story structure of this, you've got two agents, who are clearly clearly have two different backgrounds and styles and character development that they can go through. And you have a world that we've created, which is our world. I mean, they could have superiors on the show, there could be confidential informants, there could be normal people that they that they run into episode by episode, it can have families, they can have friends, they got colleagues, I mean, the whole the whole thing here is to agents just like The X Files, who every episode have to go out and investigate some some, some claim of extremism. And like we said earlier, there's no shortage of things that are being called extreme this days that we could just simply laugh at. So I I have high hopes that somebody out there can see the potential for this being a huge hit series. And, and may want to get into talks with us to develop this further. But not to get too far ahead of the of it now. I think the idea of just continuing with these short, two minute episodes would also be great. And the next episode is there's going to be a cameo in there. So all the voice, you know, Seamus does the voice of dick. And a bunch of the other voices that you'll hear in the series. I mean, the guy's a one man marching band. I mean, it's it's incredible. The amount of stuff that he can, he can accomplish, but, but it'd be great to have cameos, you know, cameos from you and Tim and anybody else who's on here. If you come in here and do and do it and do a quick cameo, it's just a voice voiceover you got a good mic, Brian, you've got a good mic, so you can do it for sure. It would be great to just continue this and serve it up on x. And that's the best part. The last thing I'll say, if I can shift gears, for sure, it's the ability for us to get this out on X is huge, because this platform is huge. And what and what Elon Musk has been able to do with opening this up to, to so many different voices, again, is that we could have put this on YouTube and spent tons and tons of money trying to get you know, views and trying to get in front of people and stuff and just be drowned out or or censored. But here, you know, I mean, just punch it, punch it out organically and getting word of mouth out there. I mean, that's that's how things. That's how it should be, you know, especially if it's good. And I think this is good. I think it's funny.

Brian Nichols  18:09  
Oh, I can't agree more. I laughed the whole time I was watching the first episode. And by the way, I do want to go back to something you did raise up, because I don't know if any everybody saw today because obviously we're all excited for the State of the Union. Very excited for our fearless leader to articulate his his vision for the country. And I want to hear his his way he's going to outline his view of our State of the Union. But with that in mind. One underlying news item that came out today was that the federal government has been illegally surveilling and building profiles of Americans in a secret portal called the DSA C for those who oppose a rate for this firearm restrictions, lock downs and vaccine mandates and or support border security and are labeling them as domestic extremists source the House Judiciary Committee and additional documentation from a judiciary.house.gov. So that's a little dystopian. And how about this, we'll add in to the conversation here. Tim sharp and John Dennis. So Tim is joining us here from the AP America group that were part of here today. He's one of our columnist and then John Dennis from the republican liberty caucus. He is the chairman John and Tim, we're gonna get you guys here into the stage. Thanks for joining us. Let's see Renzo if we can get them added as a speaker. And while he's checking that out, welcome to our new listener as well. I think Clint join Yep. Clint. Thanks for joining.

Matt Edwards  19:53  
Yeah, to that point, Brian. About I mean that that just shows you how much more material the extremists files can is going to be able to have now, right? I mean, this is, it's as if they, they, they're, they're watching what we're doing. And they're like, hey, that's actually a really good idea.

Brian Nichols  20:09  
Tim, it looks like you got the added here with the Speaker, if you're able to unmute, and then Jones like he just joined us as well. And you can join the conversation. We're going to go.

Speaker 1  20:21  
Yeah, thanks for having me on tonight, guys. And I, you know, I had not heard about this portal. But you know, I was very active during the COVID lock downs, I'm a pro to a guy. So I'm glad to know that the federal government's gonna give me some credit for that. Pretty based.

Brian Nichols  20:34  
Congratulations. Yeah, you're you're on the list. I think we're on the list right now. John, what do you think? Are you in the list? John,

Unknown Speaker  20:47  
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just jumped in here. Which list are we talking

Brian Nichols  20:52  
about? Oh, the the extremist list. The D S? Yeah. The DS AC or was that it was called D IDs AC? For those who oppose a firearm restrictions, lock downs and vaccine mandates or support border security?

Speaker 2  21:04  
I have been around way too long. I'm sure I'm on everybody's list.

Speaker 1  21:10  
I think John's John's checking every box on the left, actually.

Speaker 2  21:14  
Yeah. And in San Francisco. You know, I'm on all their local lists.

Brian Nichols  21:21  
So, John, and Tim, with the extremist files. I mean, we talk about culture, right? I mean, do you see something like the extremists files, reaching in for my show, The Brian Nichols Show part of AMP America. We talked about meeting people where they're at right, and really specifically on the issues they care about, do you think that this is going to hit that target audience and people who are awake to what's actually happening right now?

Speaker 1  21:45  
You know, I do and I think that it brings entertainment value. Sometimes in politics, we get too preachy. Not everything has to be a sermon. Yep, sometimes things just have to be entertaining to give it value and to spread a message at the same time. And I think that's where the value comes in with the extremists files.

Speaker 2  22:02  
Yeah, I mean, I think there's just an enormous appetite for, you know, for, for the new counterculture, which is what we are, and people want to be told the truth. And, you know, this has all the earmarks of the kind of show that and kind of content that is actually going to get people's attention. And if people like to laugh, as it turns out, and the one thing that the regime hates is being laughed at, so everything's pointing in the direction of success here.

Brian Nichols  22:33  
Can't agree more? How about this, we're gonna go ahead and go towards a q&a for Matt, as well as for if anybody has questions for Tim or John. So if you have a question, go ahead and raise your hand. I think that's an option you can do here and spaces. Again, this is our first space. So I give us credit where credit's due, I guess, for learning on the fly. But as questions kind of come in, Matt, I wanted to quickly just kind of jumped back to you. Because, you know, we talked about Sheamus coming in and and bringing his style to the table. And as we look back at the culture, you mentioned, this kind of feels like it has the option to go the route of something like an American Dad, a family guy, a, a South Park, I actually kind of was thinking when I was watching the first episode that the characters resemble, like a South Park meets freedom tunes, that was kind of the vibe I felt. But like when when you kind of build something more in terms of the cultural space, there's the the actual, the show it do you envision maybe going beyond the show something like like, you know, I think of the the memorabilia, the stickers, the you know, the shirts, all that kind of stuff, is that an avenue that you're gonna go down to really get the word out there about the extremist files, but maybe a different more guerilla marketing type of approach?

Matt Edwards  23:52  
Yeah, that's, that's great, because, I mean, what you're talking about here is creating a brand, right? So like the extremists files has, that has, I think it actually has that ability to have that brand, you know, whether it's co opting some of the some of the terms that that the right has been using about, you know, not complying and, and I don't know, I can't because some of the brilliant memes that have come out over the past three, four years but but I think I think I think with anything like this there the brand can can emerge from it. But more importantly to I think is the is that the more that it can stir the more like like folks that earlier you know, the we're right we need this we need this type of entertainment we need this type of outlet and it's it's a big reason why we see especially especially on X video and memes and stuff that that gets shared that advance our our worldview and kind of reframe everything exactly where it belongs, which is in the in the realm of sanity, right. And so, if you can touch people where they're at and you can create a brand and you can have, you know, Dick and Jane phrases and stuff on T shirts or, or become a meme themselves. That's only going to help normalize and make this the mainstream because we are the mainstream, right? Like the silent majority types like, well, that's, you know, the, I was asked yesterday where I was speaking with Austin Peterson I was asked like, you know, what, how is this the time for the right to be creative, or the people on the right can be creative. And it really comes down to the two people on the right have always been creative. It's just who has had access to the mainstream audience. And and the access in Hollywood was is controlled by ideologues who do not want to give any quarter to folks on the right. And if they do, then they then they're put into a special box. You know, they're they're kept in this, this almost this cartoon world. I'm thinking of that what was that TV show Parks and Rec? Nick Offerman, right, he put I forget his character's name, but he was the libertarian, you know, Parks and Rec, and it was like, Oh, it was so great. And everybody thought that was a big win, you know, for for right leaning people. But it was actually he was he was kept in a box, you know, and that it was shown to be odd. He was an odd man out, and everybody else was normal. And so if you can, if we can move forward, and this thing catches fire, and people want to, you know, create memes and come up with with with one liners and stuff. I mean, I'm all for it. I mean, I think it's, I think that stuff comes organically, you can't really force that on people. A could cost a lot of money. And then you fail. But I don't think I think I don't think when Star Wars hit. Everybody was thinking that all the Star Wars figures would be would be worth so much as they are. But But hey, I'm not I'm not I'm not against making a buck, you know?

Brian Nichols  26:56  
Well, especially when it helps like actually share the culture. Right. And I mean, you mentioned Star Wars. I mean, half of what Star Wars was built for was the memorabilia, right? It was the ability to be sold. And then obviously that turned into what you highlighted some of those pieces turning into priceless priceless pieces with that special Boba Fett. But that's not what we're talking about here today. That's the Star Wars spaces on a different channel. I thought we had Carrie Sloane join us here. She's a gun activist. We're gonna get Carrie up maybe for a quick joining us for a question. I think maybe there's gonna be asked Carrie, are you there? Or are we able to get her edit yet Renzo?

are getting there. And by the way, again, thanks for folks joining us here on our Twitter spaces from amp America. Really excited to be showcasing the new series on on amp America, our new the extremists files. So we have our producer Matt Edwards here has been highlighting that Renzo is getting you added carry. So as you get added, and as questions come in, please go ahead. And you know, raise your hands here as questions come in. But how about from a standpoint of, you know, let's let's kind of look at telling stories through cartoons, because I think there's a lot more you can do creatively, right. In terms of like, being able to go outside the box, you mentioned how Ron Swanson that was the character by the way from Nick Offerman from parcast. Ron Swan, Ron Swanson, like how he kind of was kept inside a box. And that sometimes is the creative choice of the actor themselves. When you look at the cartoon medium, do you find that maybe there's more of an ability to tell stories here and to to get more creative in the stories?

Matt Edwards  28:49  
Well, absolutely, I mean, because of animation, you're able to create whatever world you want, right? And it costs the same to draw a, you know, a mechanic working on a car than it does a mechanic working on a spaceship, you know, beyond Mars, right? In the real world, that costs a lot of money. But in the digital world, it costs the same. And if you're drawing it in a cartoon, that being said, if we can use Family Guy as an example, I think he took that to the extreme if people remember Family Guy, anytime one of the character says, ah, reminds me of the time of this, and then they cut to that moment, and it's completely off the wall, right? And you can do that because of animation. Is that became that that sort of thing became a joke in and of itself. And people were making fun of the fact that family guy always did that. Because it was it almost ended up being a crutch. It was like, if you needed a quick if you needed to, if your story wasn't funny, then just go random real quickly, and it'll then it'll be funny. And I'm not a big fan of that. I mean, and neither is Seamus I mean you can just watch any of his work he he everything is great. sounded, so even though it's animation and you're able to do it, and you're able to do a lot, you know, that you wouldn't be able to do in a live action. Or at least, you know, for the, for the amount of money that it would take, you really, you really should have it grounded. And that's why you've seen, we've seen success, even in shows like The Simpsons, or if I remember, King of the Hill was also on for a long time in terms of animation. And those were very grounded animated shows, and they were taken seriously, you know, to an extent. And so I think, I think when it comes to animation, while while you can do anything, the key to a good story, the key to storytelling is is having having it grounded in something that is that is true, that people can watch it and go, I can believe that that happens. I mean, if you've got people walking away from a, an animated, an animated series, or a movie or something, and they feel for the characters, then you've touched them at a level that's, that can only have been grounded, even though they're a fake or a cartoon, you know, there's, there's, I mean, there's a real voice behind it, but even where we're headed now, who knows if all the voices are going to be real actors? It could all be AI, this entire broadcast right now could be a I have no idea. So yeah, so I think I think that answers your question, hopefully.

Brian Nichols  31:21  
Oh, no, absolutely did and we do have Carrie, who just joined us in carrier I would love to get kind of your your perspective here. As a Don activists, you know, we talk about being able to talk about controversial topics in maybe a more easy to digest way. What's kind of your view of the extremists files being a medium to bring an issue like gun rights, for example, to the table?

Speaker 3  31:44  
Well, considering that, hey, thanks for having me on. By the way. I consider considering that any of us that want to do any sort of firearms training or getting ready to be regulated or banned or whatever, we're already considered extremists, I think it might be a great medium to actually start doing firearm fundamentals training at this point, because you know, to skirt the system, I'm I'm a system hacker, so anything that can be done to hack that system is I'm here for but as you watch the expansion of what is being classified as extremist behavior, I think that I mean, obviously, humor is always a way to get to people. I'm very active on other platforms as well. And cartoons and quick clips like that tend to do really well, and people will stop and listen to them. But as we're seeing more and more, you know, independent too conservative leaning individuals being classified as extremists, for growing their own food or wanting to be able to defend themselves with a firearm, it may be a good medium to reach people and kind of hack the system at the same time. You know, of course, of course, until they, you know, regulate cartoons, which I could see something happening let's

Brian Nichols  33:01  
put that out there carry my goodness, don't give him bad ideas.

Speaker 3  33:04  
I know I should. What was I thinking? I know is I said it Sorry, sorry, universe. I just kidding. Just kidding person, my multiple people watching me on all my lists. But um, but you know, it's I love the concept of it. I mean, because I can appreciate that I've always thought that, you know, things like, what's the god carry? I just had it in my head, and I lost it. What's the one that's been on for South Park? You know, or even the Simpsons really, for that matter? You know, they've been doing that kind of stuff forever. And I think it's at the end of the day, and you know what, I'll wrap my my statement about it up, but it's a really good way to get people to think and see things that typically they wouldn't because of the medium that has been presented and and so I'm here for it. I mean, any way that we can hack that system of getting the message and the information out is great. And obviously, you know, we've seen, you know, South Park Simpsons do it for gosh, 30 years, South Park for 20 plus years. I think it's definitely I think y'all are onto something with us. And I'm kind of excited to see where it's gonna go.

Brian Nichols  34:16  
Likewise, likewise, so Matt, I want to I know we're at the 30 minute mark which we put aside here for the the amp America first ever Twitter spaces where we're promoting our new mini series, the extremist files. Matt, as we kind of go towards the tail end here. You know, what would you want the audience to take away from from the extremists files? You know, what, what is it just culture? Do you want this to turn into maybe a messaging tool? Something to spark conversations? What do you think is the goal is for the series, we're kind of looking at the impact on the actual overall culture?

Matt Edwards  34:54  
I think it's it's laughing like I want people to laugh. I mean, as as a producer, As somebody who's made a career in, in Hollywood trying to stir emotions, whether it's laughter or crying, or, or thrilling, dramatic, whatever it is, like, at the core of it, the reason the reason I've got I got into this business was to, was to touch people's hearts and minds. And, and when it comes to a comedy like this, I want you to laugh. That being said, unders like we said earlier, understanding the impact that culture has had on our society, we have a moral obligation, to put out good things and to help advance our worldview, and, and what what has been laid before us and what and what the founders have given us in this country. And, and the, it's a big responsibility. And I think when we when when I think about storytelling, I'll leave I'll leave with this that the power of storytelling, and you can see it in two different examples. And one is, is when you look at comedy, comedy breeds trust in the audience. So for example, take a take a look at, for instance, Jon Stewart, who's just came back to The Daily Show, right? Everybody's been crying. Well, we need Jon Stewart back, right? Well, the reason why John stir was so was so influential is because he's funny, even if you didn't do this, even if you disagreed with his politics, or you disagreed with the segments that he did. It was funny, it was objectively funny. And so nobody likes to be on the butt end of a joke, right? You want to be in the box with everybody else who's laughing at who whatever you're laughing at, if the joke is a ridiculing joke. So that's the power of storytelling is that is that if, if the gesture is pointing at somebody, and everybody's laughing at them, then then that's the target. And nobody wants to be that one who's being pointed to so. So if we're able to create enough laughter, where we've turned that pointing finger back onto the king, where it belongs, in some cases, and then everybody can laugh at the king because he has no clothes on, then that's powerful. That's extremely powerful. On the other side of the coin is is is fear, you know, horror movies or thrillers things that that cause people to act, you know, and so if comedy breeds trust, fear breeds action. Nobody goes to a theater and watch as a film and if they get scared, you know if they're watching a thriller about about Michael Myers, walking into unlocked homes, when you get home from the theater, what's the first thing you do you lock all your doors? I mean, Michael Myers isn't coming to get you but it certainly scared you enough. You're like, you know what, it wouldn't hurt me to just lock the door. So you can take that to it to its logical end with with so many things that Hollywood has scared people into what the mainstream media is scares people into, we can go back to COVID and what it made everybody go out and do because they were scaring the hell out of us. But now's the time to laugh. And so I hope people take away from this laughter and if it if it allows them to point the finger back and speak truth to power, then that's that's that's the big bonus. All

Brian Nichols  38:10  
right, I think we are going to wrap it up there awesome, man. We're we're really excited to to see where this grows and you know, obviously looking at you know, adding more series to the future and I'm looking forward to buying my T shirt for the the extremist files so thank you again for for helping make this a reality. And thank you for also bringing Seamus in because yeah, adding his little his added just kind of Seamus isms. You know, that's the way to put it. You really can't. You can't do it better than he so ya know. With that, folks, thank you for joining us again, for our first amp America spaces and we'll have to make sure we do this again. But with that being said, I think we're gonna wrap up our here. Thanks again, folks. Thanks, Brian.

Matt Edwards  38:53  
Appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai