Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
No Gods, No Heroes, No Idols
We've all felt that gut-punch moment. You discover that celebrity you've adored for years—whose work shaped your identity or brought you comfort—has revealed themselves to be deeply problematic. Your social media feed floods with damning evidence, your friends debate whether to throw away their merchandise, and you're left wondering: what now?
This episode dives headfirst into the messy, emotional territory of fallen idols. From JK Rowling's transformation from beloved author to controversial TERF figure, Johnny Depp's complicated history of abuse allegations masked by brilliant PR, to Elon Musk's increasingly erratic behavior and Neil Gaiman's disturbing accusations—we explore what happens when heroes become villains in their own stories.
But this conversation goes deeper than celebrity gossip. We're examining the moral gymnastics we perform to justify continuing to support problematic creators. Does "separating the art from the artist" hold up when your financial support enables ongoing harmful behavior? Can you draw a clear line between enjoying someone's creative work and endorsing their worldview?
The reality is both complex and simple. While completely eliminating all problematic consumption might be impossible (yes, we all need smartphones), small changes collectively make massive impacts. Every ticket unsold, every subscription canceled, every book unbought sends a message. Whether it's cutting your Target visits in half or passing on the newest Tesla, these decisions reflect our values in action.
Perhaps the healthiest approach is to abandon the concept of heroes altogether. No gods, no heroes, no idols—just people, all flawed, all capable of both brilliance and terrible judgment. The choice to withdraw your support isn't about purity; it's about aligning your actions with your values, even when it means letting go of things you once loved.
What celebrities have you struggled to separate from their work? Where do you draw your personal line? Share your thoughts with us and join the conversation about ethical consumption in a world where information travels at the speed of a tweet.
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people to their simplest ingredients. I'm your host for this week, Lindsay McLeclean, and with me is my fantastic co-host christopher patchett lcsw I have to say credit where credit is due. I did not come up with the name for this episode. I wish I did. I wish I thought of cool stuff like that. I actually stole this from somebody on the internet. I don't remember her exact username because she has a couple different pages. Have you ever seen the sad beige lady?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Sad beige whatever for sad beige children, and she impersonates Werner Herzog.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I guess the algorithm shows us very different things. She, she is fantastic. I love her. She was the one who first quoted the name, the the no gods, no heroes, no idols in reference to one of the things I'm going to be talking about, one of the examples and I believe that was the name of an article about this, because I haven't seen it anywhere else, but it was too beautiful to just leave there. I want to expand it. So I'm starting off with a question, though, for you when you were growing up, did you have a hero or an idol?
Speaker 2:Kurt Cobain.
Speaker 1:The way that just rolled off your tongue, I would say he still sort of is, maybe.
Speaker 2:I would say my top two favorite bands of all time is Nirvana and Flag of Mali. Nirvana, I would say growing up, that was my hero idol. Whatever as an adult, I would say Flag up, that was my hero idol. Whatever as an adult, I would say Flog of Molly. So yeah, you know the whole story, how I met them and everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, well, and our beloved EP is named Molly, and it's not for the drug.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I can't tell you how many times people thought that ew, I'm like, I'm not gonna name my dog after a drug like what is wrong with you people? Be dumb so my last dog's name was sid vicious and somebody actually asked me is he named after the wrestler or the drug addict? I was like the drug addict fair?
Speaker 1:true, in that case it would be. If they knew that, then maybe asking about molly's name is a valid question. So I have to say I never had a hero or an idol or whatever growing up. Like I hated that question at school, I don't know. There was never just anyone, and there still isn't anyone that I would name and be like this person, like I think they're so, so, so cool and I really look up to them. And, to be honest, now in 2025, I'm really glad for that.
Speaker 2:So no, taylor Swift.
Speaker 1:No, I know, Shocking, right, Hmm, but yeah, we, it feels like on a daily, weekly basis at least, are finding out horrific facts about people in today's world. It's like every time you look at the news, it's just this person you thought was really cool, they're actually a humongous asshole. You're like okay, and then the next week it's the same thing and the same thing, and the same thing.
Speaker 2:We're constantly finding out this information about people and you're probably gonna slap me because I'm I'm guessing that these are gonna be names that you're bringing up is ellen and lizzo actually those are not two on my list, but we can definitely talk about them because they they are also.
Speaker 1:The classic example of people that we used to idolize is like wow, this is somebody who's like amazing and cool and wonderful. And then the information comes out and you're like whoopsies let me not support you anymore, because I've noticed that there are two general types of ways that this happens.
Speaker 1:One of them is like the slow-mo, roll-down hill-to-hill type person, where it starts off with one problematic thing but it's not too problematic, everything, I believe, for me to support you, okay. And then there's another one, and another one, and another one, and it takes a little while, but suddenly you look around and you're like, oh, we're in hell, we've made it there and I just didn't realize and I have continued to support this person. And now what do you do? And then there are people who it's just like the bombshell allegations where, like all of a sudden, out of nowhere, something drops and it just like completely shatters your view of them. And there can be some overlap. Looking at you, p Diddy, you know where there are some allegations that are going around. It's not like completely like oh really. But then all the information that comes out and you're like how many bottles of baby oil you know? And never in case you have somebody who went from being like beloved to reviled, just like complete 180 for many people anyway.
Speaker 2:Tell me you shut up, if this is one of the things that you can bring up, but the thing that really gets me, though, is that they take 180, but people forget.
Speaker 1:So, like mel gibson, yes, mel Gibson, yes, yeah, yeah, there are a lot of cases. There were so many cases to choose from here. When I sat down to do this, I was almost overwhelmed by like but who do I pick? It's not one. That's really like I need another example. It's like who's the best example, who's the worst example? But yeah, there are a lot and people do forget about it, which is why we need to be talking about this, because if you have a hero or idol and they do shit stuff, you should rethink that relationship. We do not forget.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately, kevin Spacey is another one that he's starting to come back into.
Speaker 1:No, no, how it was only 10 years ago. Well, there are certain things you can come back from and there are certain things that you don't come back from, and I need us to understand the difference, because all the stuff that I'm going to be talking about here is stuff that, like you, you really can't come back from, but people are trying to, people are trying to avoid because this is their hero or idol. So you ready to hear some examples?
Speaker 1:yes, let's hear them so one of the first people I thought about with this was Miss Moldy Wall, herself JK Rowling. Oh God, yeah, you and I both know people who have Harry Potter tattoos. That's a thing. That was such a thing back in the day and I know, in case it wasn't clear yes, I'm a millennial. That's why I know somebody with a Harry Potter tattoo. So I also worked at a camp that had a full week of Harry Potter. That was the theme. We played Quidditch, we had a task in the lake, we had this whole night theme and the kids were dressed up and it was like Harry Potter to the max. I grew up reading those books.
Speaker 2:I made you read those books wait, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait oh, you chose completely on free will yes, yes, I, I caved in. I. So you, you were trying to force me to read the books, watch the movie, anything. And I was like nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. And I think it was somebody that I worked with who's my age and she was saying about like Harry Potter. I was like fine, fine.
Speaker 1:I'll fucking read it. But yeah, see, you got on the harry potter train, you know I I still know my house like that's is a huge thing, especially for millennials like I. Get that you were probably like just outside that age range yeah, the first book came out when I was 17 yeah, and I was god.
Speaker 1:I sometimes forget because now that we're adults the age difference like isn't so bad, but I remember my mom reading the first and second books to my sister and me, like my sister was old enough to read them and the books had been a present for her, I think for my grandmother, but I was still like just young enough that it was like you get to have this, you know, read to you chapter by chapter and I was like fuck yeah I love this but there was a time when, like she was jk rowling, was like super cool, like every one of her tweets or like every other tweet was something like dumbledore is gay.
Speaker 1:People were like, yes, queen slay, because she felt like she cared and like she was rolling with the times. Do you remember that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, I totally remember. Well, I mean, it wasn't even that long ago. It was what? Maybe 2018, 19? Well, no, it was just about the time that I started reading that she went. So it was 2020, 2021.
Speaker 1:time that I started reading that she went. So it was 2020, 2021. Yeah, 2018, 2019 is right around the time when she suddenly made a little like u-turn and started saying some real offensive shit. Yeah, she has. In case you've been living under a rock, she has outed herself as a turf. So turf stands for trans, exclusionary, radical feminist. That is a group of women who are feminists and super pro-women. As long as you were born, a woman Can't be trans. If you were trans, you were not actually a woman. That is a man and men can get the fuck out of here. So there was a special little group of people and you know, she kind of said some things. People were like, oh my god, and then she just doubled down. But she really doubled down on this and she continues to to this day to tweet really horrific things and really nasty things about trans women and being very exclusionary over who can be a woman and who we're allowing in. That's if, if you support gay rights, you can't like JK Rowling. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny because I remember when it first came out and she doubled down on it and things like that, and I was like okay, like okay, this is gonna you know, this can roll over, that eventually maybe she might open up or whatever, or or at least just shut the fuck up about it, right?
Speaker 1:and now she's just still she's still out there every day maybe not every day, but it is a constant. She continues to repeat this viewpoint, which is why I'm like you can't ignore this. Yes, she has done some really great things. She continues to do great things. She continues to give money to, for instance, you know, help ukraine, um, to help children there. There's a lot of good stuff that she does, but then she also goes and gets on twitter and says stuff like, does stuff like. She'll post a list of trans women and say, and I quote, they are men.
Speaker 2:Every last one of them but the thing is, with her, she she's kind of excluding herself because she's extremely pro-gay, so she's cutting out the the, the right, and then's extremely anti-trans, which now she's cutting out the left.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she really seems to be trying to shoot herself in both feet, because I also remember the panic the satanic panic around Harry Potter and witchcraft and the devil, so it's not like the right is going to be like we love you, now we're going to read your books. Those people still don't like harry potter. They never will, and now you have cut out the whole group of people who absolutely like, adored you. So many of them are like. It's not enough, though, and we'll talk about this at the end, but, like I, I would love. I would love people to put their money where their mouth is, especially for her I I love the fact that the actors of harry potter have come out against yeah, and she's.
Speaker 1:She's attacked them on twitter for that yeah because of course she did. Yeah, don't worry, we've got more.
Speaker 2:Oh boy.
Speaker 1:Another fantastic example of people we should not be supporting if we have morals.
Speaker 2:Johnny Depp. Okay, I might be missing something, but go ahead. Have you been living under a rock, sir? So I do know that he goes for the younger women I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's orlando bloom. Is orlando bloom not orlando bloom, um or no? He had matt damon. It's not johnny depp. You're you're confusing him with somebody else. I can see the man, the, the one who has the meme of the glass, being like Leonardo DiCaprio. There we go.
Speaker 2:But, Johnny Depp, it was that whole trial thing right.
Speaker 1:There's more.
Speaker 2:Okay, so all I know about is the trial. I haven't heard anything else outside of that, but the trial. She had problems too.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That kind of made it seem like, okay, maybe he didn't go to the extent that she was saying.
Speaker 1:So, to be fair, his PR team ran props to them, team ran props to them. They completely dominated that narrative and were able to kind of swing it to be like, wow, look at this crazy bitch and I'm not saying that she's completely innocent in this, because there were just enough things about that trial that you're like who pooped in whose bed now? Weird stuff like that. You're like, okay, you've got some problems too. But his PR team did a whole number on that and when you look back at the information that was being put out people who were live streaming and tweeting and vlogging about it you'll notice that it is incredibly, incredibly one-sided. Like these people were like there when people were testifying and Johnny Depp had witnesses Magically, no one's talking about when Amber Heard was up, that we just we're not going to even look at that. Like that's a problem Gotta. Look at both sides of things. Both people can be crazy. Look at both sides of things. Both people can be crazy.
Speaker 1:But he, he has a history of verbal abuse, domestic abuse there's, you know, substance abuse and alcoholism are in there. Obviously that's more of like a personal thing. He has been sued for hitting and verbally assaulting film crew members before. There have been other previous issues again with, like, the domestic abuse and a lot of it for him. Until this has been kind of like rumors or you know weird divorces or or things like that, but never like publicly exploded. But certainly if you look at the amber heard johnny depp trial, he did some pretty horrific things to her too. It's like, uh, can we still watch pirates of the caribbean knowing that this is somebody who domestic like abuses their partner? Is that what you want to do with your life and your money?
Speaker 1:hmm, it's yeah, yeah yeah, he's one of the classic ones I see of people being like, oh, but I really like his movies. I really like, you know, edward Scissorhands. I get it. I really like, again, pirates of the Caribbean High school. That was a big thing for me. Again, this is somebody who has a history of abuse against other people.
Speaker 2:I love the Gen X, millenn, uh, millennial, uh timeline there, or the the cut, because I'd like I don't give a flying fuck about pirate, pirates, but I'm like, oh my god, you know, like fucking edwards sands, that was a fucking awesome movie I know it's, it's a really hard divide, like we started that and we're like everything.
Speaker 1:After that, that he did like, oh my god, amazing, and you guys, it was kind of like up until that point and after I was like, who is this man? Yeah, yeah, he's, he's problematic. There you go, though. Uh, people still trying to cover it up. Uh, and speaking about men who have been trying to cover stuff up, this is the guy who I got the title, the episode name, in reference to Neil Gaiman.
Speaker 2:American.
Speaker 1:God. I have recommended his writing to you before. He is an author. He wrote American Gods, good Omens, which also has the TV series. He co-wrote that with Terry Pratchett. He's an incredibly well-known fantasy writer. Like I love his stuff, I'll be honest. Like American Gods is fantastic. I have reread it multiple times. So to preface this, not too long ago I was at a dinner party with some friends and something came up about the podcast and I told them the name and so people were looking up and one person was like everything's rated e for explicit. What are you guys talking about? I was like no, no, no, no, we just say fuck a lot.
Speaker 1:That's why that's there it's not like the, the actual topics necessarily, it's just, we curse oh my god, it actually um.
Speaker 2:I don't know why, but a couple days ago I thought about this. There is one episode that we do not curse is it the one with my mom?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's trying so hard.
Speaker 2:Every other episode. Fuck yeah, fuck this, fuck that, fuck them your mom. Well, yes, yes, I do agree, quite, quite happily.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, absolutely yeah, I was like that. That's why we have that. So, bearing that in mind, the rape allegations against Neil Gaiman are not something that I will be talking about on here. I'll say fuck all day. What I read was incredibly graphic, like it wasn't just rape, it was real bizarre stuff. Yeah, some of these allegations this one is ongoing. To be fair, he has just recently produced some text messages with one of the women involved, looking like it might be something more consensual. That was happening. I cannot comment on that. I did not see the original stuff. I did not see those text messages. This is still happening. Certainly like when these allegations hit the news, people came down pretty hard, at least initially, and like TV shows got canceled and continuing work on Good Omens got canceled. How have you not seen that or read it? I'm so disappointed in you Although don't do it now, see, it's too late you missed your opportunity.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess this is not a name that I really register. I mean, I'm sure you just kind of like, hey, check this out, and I'm like, yeah, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it probably was just said in passing. We were having a discussion about books or whatever, and I was like, oh my God, you've got to read this one. It wouldn't have been something that I brought up like 18 times in a row read this one. It wouldn't have been something that I brought up like 18 times in a row, like you have to read American gods, you have to, you have to, you have to, but now you're not allowed to. So and a last person for you, before we discuss all these horrific people, and my heart goes out to you as I say this I have a feeling, yep musk okay, okay, I.
Speaker 2:I thought that you were gonna say somebody else, but oh, yes, yes, my heart, oh god. How did I not see that?
Speaker 1:right, I was waiting for you to be like. No, yeah, even before he went like full dark maga or whatever it is that he was calling it, he does, at this point now, have 14 children with four different women. There's, there was just a 14th that was born like how long ago really recently, because 13 was the um weird fucked up name no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:That that one's way back there. Now he's got more. He's got a whole bunch more. Yeah, he's just continued having them.
Speaker 1:No 13 was with the, I think, the influencer, who basically people are giving her shit for this and again, this is one. That's where you look at the two of them and you're like I don't know what's true, but both of you were fucked up here. She made it clear, like for years that she wanted to have his kid and ashley st claire, and then she supposedly had his kid and now he won't pay child support. She, she got on twitter to be like, won't you take care of your baby? And yeah, I think I'm pretty sure that's number 13. Yeah, even before that, even when he had a normal number of children, we've seen him getting high during important meetings for years.
Speaker 1:That's been a question that maybe we should be thinking about. We're like, wow, here's this person who's really pushing the limits with SpaceX, who's doing a lot of work on self-driving cars, who's doing a lot of work on electric vehicles and charging stations and stuff like that. A lot of people supported him originally because of that and they overlooked some of these issues, some of the quirks, and if it had just been like, oh, he gets high during whatever call it was. It was some important business call. I just remember he was apparently puffing away on weed or something.
Speaker 1:If that was the extent of it, we would not be talking about him right now. That's the type of hey, you're allowed to have your opinion, I'm allowed to have mine, and we can still be okay. We can do that. When you buy Twitter and then let all of the white supremacists who were banned on it back on, that's a problem. Uh, you refusing to acknowledge that your daughter is trans? That's a problem. You routinely promoting conspiracy theories like and not just any conspiracy theories, but like the wildest conspiracy theories that's a problem, and that has been going on for years. That is not a new development. He's one of those like slow burn type ones, but it has been pretty evident for a while now.
Speaker 2:I think that the man's weird, at the very least I don't know if it was so much a slow burn, because it wasn't that long ago that.
Speaker 1:He started during COVID, you can see a change where all of a sudden he was like no, we shouldn't be having the lockdowns and stuff like that. People still kind of were like, oh, but he gave Starlink to Ukraine. He still kind of had some some flips that were going on in there. But for me, if you're going to sit there and be like you know, this is not. I want to be able to go where I want to go. I don't want to have to just sit at home to protect myself for the woke virus that tells me that you're headed the wrong way I mean, it's that like okay.
Speaker 1:I would say, if it was just that, then that would be like okay, like there's a red flag there, but right and this is why I say that he's that slow burn, because there are red flags and when you look back hindsight you're like we should have seen this coming a while ago, like more people should have seen it coming because the red flags were big enough that it's like all right, here's a red flag and then here's some like beige to greeny flags and here's a red flag, some beige and green flags. But we really should have called on soon. It's like the red flags keep coming. They keep happening with like some regularity that this is maybe not somebody that we should be super idolizing. This is somebody who's not real stable and is prone to saying just wild ass shit.
Speaker 1:Maybe not somebody who I want to hold up as my hero. Or, if you are choosing to hold him up as your hero, I have some questions for you. You can't find anybody else who's doing good work on self-driving cars. You can't find anyone else who's doing work with spaceships, space shuttles, whatever they're called. There's no one, no one else. It's got to be this guy with 14 kids, with four different women.
Speaker 2:You know, with everything going on with Tesla, one of the biggest things I love seeing is where people are like. Oh you know, I thought that the left was all about like cars, and now all of a sudden you're bringing.
Speaker 1:Oh, the empathy thing, yeah, and he was like the biggest problem in the world right now is too much empathy, and then he literally gets on fox news like I thought the left was the party of empathy it's not so much.
Speaker 2:I put it like you know, like where people are, like oh you know, like the left was all about electric cars and now, all of a sudden, it's like you guys do realize that other companies make electric cars, like what you know, just like you guys uh going out there, uh shooting at bud lights. There are other beers to choose from you know that analogy right there. You know, yeah, we might now hate Tesla because of the man who owns it, but all the other fucking car manufacturers are now making electric cars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are a lot of them out there. Now there's a pretty big choice like range that you can choose from for electric vehicles. It's not just Tesla. Tesla is the most well-known. Tesla tends to have like the biggest share in most markets. They're not the only one. You have a choice and you should be exercising that choice. I say you like, you have a Tesla.
Speaker 2:Nope, I got a Hyundai.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little stick shift, I love it. Promise me you'll buy another stick shift when the time comes.
Speaker 2:As long as they keep on making them, I'm going to keep on buying them.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, that's what I want to hear my sister got an automatic.
Speaker 2:I uh caught her sell out it's true.
Speaker 1:It's true, she's like I tried to.
Speaker 2:I was like, yeah, but you didn't try hard enough.
Speaker 1:But this card now, I don't care you can always find the stick shift if you really want to. So before we get into the where we go from here, one of the common arguments I see across all of this that I want to just kind of like cut out is people being like oh, but they make a good product. You know, just like you were saying, but I thought the left loves electric vehicles. We have choices now. You can pick other things and even if they make a good product, maybe you need to not support that product. You can do that Because, look, when russia invaded ukraine three years ago, you know people were all up in arms like fuck everything russian, fuck putin. I don't want anything to do with russia, russian whatever. We don't support putin. Okay, we've got putin.
Speaker 1:Putin is the problem here, but we do still listen to tchaikovsky. That's, that's the thing we can do. And I saw people cutting that and being like we're not going to have anything to do with that. No, no, no, no. Wrong direction, because here's the thing Tchaikovsky died in 1893.
Speaker 1:He can't say hateful things anymore. He can't get on Twitter and say gross, nasty things. If he did say nasty things, we probably are aware of them and we can judge him based off of that and you can decide if this is somebody you want to support or not. I think we know what he has said at this point and we can go from there and say that, yes, this is somebody whose music we support.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, the man was gay. We're pretty sure Tchaikovsky was actually gay, which is a problem in Russia right now. It's illegal, can't be gay. We don't like that. So, if anything, listening to Tchaikovsky is giving the middle finger to Putin, but you know that we don't support that. If you're you're somebody who cares about gay rights, if you're somebody who cares about human rights, unless you have a really good reason to you, don't go to Russia now. You can still listen to Tchaikovsky. You can still read Dostoevsky. These are people who are dead. They've been dead. That is Russian culture. That is okay. We can have that in our lives. But we do not support the current toxic administration.
Speaker 2:But we do not support the current toxic administration, and the one thing that that kind of gets to me is that you hear this all the time that you know, especially when you're talking about figures in the past and like, well, you know, we can't compare, we, we can't judge them off of our standards today, and it's just like these people that own slaves, like it was pretty obvious that owning humans as a property like no bueno.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you know we had a whole group of people who were like, hey, let's not do that. You know, as soon as you have that dichotomy of like people who are like woo, of people who were like, hey, let's not do that, as soon as you have that dichotomy of people who are like woo and people who are like ooh, bad move, don't do that, then you're like right, so you did have a choice here. You did know you could have known, you could have opened your eyes. In fact, you chose not to.
Speaker 2:So, yes, we are going to judge you for that. I had this discussion once before, like probably with you and, I know, like with my sister, a hundred years ago. Maybe I might have had a different view of women just because of the fact that there was evidence that women have smaller brains and therefore, like, their ability to vote and ability to make choice decisions were not as good. But maybe at that time I would have thought differently. But it did come out that, yes, their brain is smaller, but it's also because of the fact that their brain is a hell of a lot more organized than a man's. They don't need that extra brain room because they're able to do just as much with what they have.
Speaker 1:There's just less ooga booga going on up in there.
Speaker 2:You look at the evidence. But I mean even, even if you believe that you know slavery or that blacks were less than human. I look at my dog. You know like I wouldn't, I would never whip her. I would never, like you know, beat her. I would never punish. You know like or or treat her inhumane like that, humane, like that. So, even even if you had that belief, you still knew better than to beat a person like that.
Speaker 1:I think that's exactly. That's a. It's a really good analogy right there, because we can judge. There are some things that we can't judge people on. It's like. This was just. This was what we thought. We knew this, this was the science of the day. People thought that you could take a leech and put it on somebody and it would. It would draw out you know cause. It looked like it was doing something. We, you know, may have done this, we may have done that, and that's what we thought was normal. That's what everyone was on the same page of. Like this is this is okay. Now we know it's's not okay, so we don't do that anymore. But it's when you've got that like. Some people are like yeah, you can totally just like steal somebody and make them your property and whip them until they die. And there were other people who were like maybe don't. That's what's like. All right that you were making a choice and you found ways to justify your choice, your bad choice, and I they do deserve that judgment.
Speaker 1:100 yeah absolutely for those people. Yeah, it's. I see that come up all the time like oh, yeah, we were allowed to even more modern stuff. Like I see this with comedians all the time that people will, you know, kind of pull up stuff from before that they said, you know like 10, 15 years ago. Oh, what was her name? Jenna Marbles. She's not really a comedian, she was on YouTube. She was one of the first YouTubers, kind of of that group, and she I'm very curious what exactly happened with it. She essentially cancelled herself. She took herself off the internet because it was right around the time that people were starting to like really dig up old videos of people and find like terrible things about them. Like hey, here's a photo of you in blackface.
Speaker 1:We've known you can't do that for a while yeah you don't get like oh, that was 10 years ago, yeah, and 50 years ago we knew that was wrong. Okay, don't don't. She took herself out because I think it was blackface. Now I don't remember the specifics. She, I think, knew that there were some photos, videos of her that were not super great, and so she just quietly stepped off of YouTube before anybody could come for her. I don't know if there was more to it than what she kind of admitted to. I don't know if she was just smart enough to be like. You know, I did some dumb shit. That may come for me. I'm going to handle this myself, as opposed to letting somebody else handle it.
Speaker 2:You know what the thing is.
Speaker 2:That that's really kind of unfortunate is that you know, like the Doge employees, that is not even 10 years ago, it's six months ago, yeah, and like you know, like the Doge employees, that is not even 10 years ago, it's six months ago, yeah, and like you know what People make mistakes, people, people fuck up, they, you know but to. But if you, if you fuck up, you need to show that you understand, you need to show that you are, that you are aware of, to show that you are that, that you are aware of the mistakes that you made. And six months is not enough time to to really show, especially something obvious as being anti-semitic. You know it's, it's not like a whoopsie, I totally fucked this up. Let me show, like you know, like that I am resentful for the things I did.
Speaker 1:Let me let me show you how I've changed. Yeah, yeah, just saying like oh, I'm so sorry, like that, this came out, the actress from the movie that just came out. There was like a whole bunch of oscar controversy around it. It's the movie about the set in mexico, but like it doesn't actually have any mexican actors in it. Actors, actresses emilia Perez.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know that one.
Speaker 1:I only know about it because of the controversy surrounding it that the main actress, who is trans, had said some really hateful things on Twitter at one point back in the day and people resurfaced them and her response to that was to kind of like weirdly double down on it and then, I think, complained that people were attacking her because she was trans. It was like you said some really hateful things against islam, that and you have not gone by. You know you said that. Surely somewhere in the back of your head. You remember that you have said nasty things before in public, because Twitter is public, facebook is public.
Speaker 2:I had a friend of mine in San Diego. And so he comes up to me and he says you know, like Chris, you know like there's some time I really need to talk to you about, and you know this is back in 2006. And you know this is back in 2006. So still kind of you know it was coming out. It was still kind of that. That. Can I trust him or can I, you know, do I still need to stay in? So you know, he comes up to me and he tells me that he needs to tell me something.
Speaker 2:And I'm like oh you know, thinking in my head, here comes the gay speech. Head, here comes the gay speech. Like you know, do I do I? That's what I'm assuming here no, do I act surprised, do I? I never knew? Yes, but he tells me he's like um, you know I, I was actually born a woman and I was like okay, you know, like you know, he showed me a picture of when he was a female and I was like good choice, good choice. I didn't say that, yeah, but yeah, you know, we were friends, we hung out and everything like that. And so he comes to my apartment one time he knocks on my door and I opened up and he, he was really pissed off and I was like you know, everything okay. And he's like well, I I gotten or gotten into an argument with somebody and they, we, we, we got into each other's face and then the guy hit me and I'm going to sue them for hate crime. And I'm like, you know, like did, what was this about?
Speaker 2:Like you being trans or trans or no? He didn't. I mean, I didn't say anything like that and I was like, like you can't really say that it was a hate crime, like yeah, you know it had nothing to do with that and and I mean, you don't come off as trans at all, you know. So yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:This is definitely an episode for another time. The whole like playing the victim type thing that people will do when they are caught in an awkward situation and they have to find like some reason and it's like just take responsibility. This isn't about this other thing. Sometimes it is and that needs to be addressed, and sometimes you're just being a dick and you need to accept responsibility for it To be fair for her, for this actress, it's not like there were hundreds of tweets per day that she had made. Elon Musk, you can't tell me that. You just like made a hateful. You had a hateful thought, put that hateful thought on the internet, you typed it out, hit send and then that thought has never crossed your brain again. That you're not aware that you have these ideas inside. No, we just completely forgot about it. It was a, it was a singular thought, and the rest of them are all good and perfect. Also, why did nobody scrub your Twitter account? Why, in 2025, have we not completely scrubbed our Twitter accounts? So where do you see us going from here?
Speaker 2:I, I, I. I think the big thing is it kind of falls in line with what we've kind of talked about before of like jordan pearson and and Andrew Tate and people like that, where if you're giving them attention, you're saying that it's okay, that just as well as with Andrew Tate, that, okay, you know what. He talks about Jesus and he talks about God. He talks about jesus and he talks about god and he is very big into his religion. Yeah, cool. But along with that package you're also getting somebody who discriminates against women, has physically assaulted women, who has views them as now sex objects, use them as sex objects uh, as of now is being objects Use them as sex objects.
Speaker 2:As of now is being. Where is he at the moment? Oh God.
Speaker 1:I try to avoid anything to do with him.
Speaker 2:Well, what's the word above? Accused but not yet tried. So there's accusations of sex trafficking. So I mean, you're getting all that with the package. And same thing with JK Rowling, where, yeah, she came out with this awesome series, she was an advocate for gay rights, but also in that package you're also getting somebody who is transphobic. Yeah, so it's. You know, there there are certain things for you know, and it's a very hard line. Uh, where, what is the a hard line between being a dick and just being like, okay, you're disgusting and you really have to kind of figure out where your values are.
Speaker 1:I think that's what it comes down to is you have to figure out your own values before you go after these people. Because if you want to sit here and say I hate trans people, then you can have JK Rowling your own values before you go after these people. Because if you want to sit here and say I hate trans people, then you can have JK Rowling that fits within your values and you're allowed to do that. I don't want to necessarily be your friend, that's my choice, but you were allowed to say I'm okay with this. But you cannot pick and choose. When people's beliefs and actions have effects beyond just themselves, you don't get to pick and choose and be like ah, I don't like this part of them, but I'm going to support all this other stuff. No, because that part of them still exists. That part of them exists on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:All this other stuff? No, because that part of them still exists, that part of them exists on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:Jk Rowling continues to say hateful things against trans people. Elon Musk continues to be Elon Musk. Not a fan of his in. He supports the right. I'm a good Christian.
Speaker 1:You don't get to hold Elon Musk up and say, as a Christian, for someone whom Christianity is very important I raised my family by the Bible, I support Elon Musk. Elon Musk is not supporting your ideals. In that sense, you don't get to just ignore that part. That is part of who he is. If you're okay with him having 14 kids with four different women, fine, you're allowed to. But you don't get to be like, oh, but he's also a Christian and that's why I support him. What? No, no, no, no. I want us to do a better job of A obviously figuring out our values and putting that hard line down and being like you know what. You and I have some differences in opinion, and that's okay. We don't have to agree on everything, but you know, up until this point I'm okay with it and you pass this point. And now that is offensive to.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to go to Harry Potter world and I've got my house in my bio and I'm actively consuming new Harry Potter merchandise. I am actively going out and buying a Tesla. Despite being morally against everything that Elon Musk does. I'm going to go buy a Tesla. You can't buy another electric car. No, you have to put your money where your mouth is, and that is where change will happen is if there is a big enough push of people being like we don't like Neil Gaiman.
Speaker 1:We're upset about these allegations. And enough has come out that we're like this is true, you really did horrifically rape these women. We're upset about these allegations. And enough has come out that we're like this is true, you really did horrifically rape these women. You know, I'm not going to buy your stuff. I'm not going to watch anything that you were involved in producing. That has an effect that teaches people that this is not okay behavior. But as long as you continue to sit there and consume it, they will continue to produce it. Johnny Depp will continue to make movies because there are enough people like yeah, I know he that Amber Heard trial was crazy man, but that she's also a bitch. Yes, she's a bitch. Maybe I don't know, but we know that he's also crazy too. Why would you continue to support that? You can say I'm not going to watch anything that she's in. But if you're going to do that, you need to do the same thing for Johnny Depp. You have to boycott these people Need people to understand you can't ethically consume it.
Speaker 2:It's you know. I think that the problem is that people say it's too hard.
Speaker 1:You just don't want to put the effort in, just admit it.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing, Like okay, I don't know, though I mean it's, I'm against, I'm against child labor, but I still have an iPhone.
Speaker 1:It is true. There are certain cases where it's it's really hard to completely cut yourself off from some things. As you just said, there's that. I know that there are actual people who are like I don't like Walmart, like Walmart has destroyed my small town community, but Walmart is now the only place I can shop. Walmart is the only place I can afford. I am not going to be mad at you for doing that. I'm not going to be mad at you, for you know, looking at me like I don't, I truly don't have another option. I have done it In many cases, though, there is another option.
Speaker 1:If you sit there and you're like I hate Amazon, so, so, so much, why? Why do I see Prime boxes outside your door? You can cut down on that. You may not be able to completely disengage from Amazon, because Amazon is one of those that people kind of forget this. There's Amazon, the store where you buy all your crap, and then there's the Amazon web service, which is hosting, like the cloud, which is hosting so much stuff. So so many people, so many companies are paying Amazon to host their things there that you use on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:That's a lot harder to cut yourself out from, but could you decrease your usage of those websites? Yes, you know you have an iPhone. Decrease your usage of those websites. Yes, you have an iPhone. Child labor probably, let's be honest. So maybe you just don't buy the newest iPhone. Maybe you make your phone last as long as possible so that you don't have to keep buying new things. I think there's always a way that you can at least do something. You say like I don't like this and I truly don't have another option. I cannot completely cut out child labor from all these things. I cannot completely cut out Amazon, but I am doing I'm actively doing my best to decrease my reliance on it and decrease the amount of money I give these people, while also not going and living in a shack in the middle of the woods.
Speaker 2:I don't know it's. I think it's. It's a lot more complicated than that, because so, like Guinness I found out, is I would say like they're 90% liberal in the, in the, the, the things that they support, but their parent company is kind of like a different story. It's just kind of like okay, so where do I draw the line on this?
Speaker 1:I think that's a personal thing for everybody. Everybody has to look at it. There is no one answer that says you draw it here. I think everybody needs to, on their own, do their research and look into it and be like how much am I going to tolerate? Because, yes, you have a company like Ben and Jerry's that likes to put on this image of we're super pro social justice and all of that. The parent company not really. That's the case for a lot of companies. People just they're not aware that, for instance, Kroger, the grocery store chain, is more than just Kroger. Kroger has, like, tons of other companies have something against Kroger. You may not know.
Speaker 1:Again, you need to educate yourself and you need to personally decide how big of an issue is this for you, Like, how much of a problem do you have with this thing? Because you may look, for instance, you may look at Johnny Depp and you say, yeah, it's pretty bad, but also, in the grand scheme of things, there are far worse people. You know she was also crazy, whatever, and so I'm not going to deprive myself of Johnny Depp movies. Okay, fine, fine, you know you may look at Amazon and say I think it's a really shit company but I need to use them to buy these things for my business. I have no other option. I've looked, I can't find it, so I'm going to keep using Amazon to buy stuff. But I think every little change you can make it adds up. I'm sure you've seen. Right now Target has been hit big time because of DEI. Have you seen that? Yeah, I'm sure you've seen. Right now Target has been hit big time because of DEI. Have you seen that? That's a classic example. People are upset that Target cut their DEI initiative because that was something that Target had really pushed for a while and so they are boycotting Target. That has an effect.
Speaker 1:You don't have to completely cut Target out. Cut target out. But if your thing used to be oh, I go on Saturdays, I go get my little Starbies drink and I go to target and I do some shopping, that's my like me time. If you do that every Saturday and you want to make a difference, maybe you go every other Saturday. You cut out, cut it by half. Well, you only go once a month and you go someplace else the other Saturdays, that has an effect. All of that has an effect. You can't tell. I'm going to completely get rid of it. I'm going to completely. I'm never going to drink Guinness again because of this. Can I find something else that at the very least, I decrease my dependence, my need, my like, obsession with this one thing as a way of showing my displeasure?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:On that note, where would you put idolizing potentially bad people on our scale? Oh, toxicity, would you say that this is a green potato will make you sick if you eat it, but just scrape off that part and you'll be fine. Is this a death cap mushroom, 50-50 chance of death or coma, even when cooked? Or is this a delicious but deadly last snack of antifreeze?
Speaker 2:Hmm, I'm debating between high death cap and jello with sprinkles of antifreeze.
Speaker 1:We like kind of splatted, some on top.
Speaker 2:Because the thing is, as long as you, as long as you're even if you don't agree with the things that they're saying or the things that they're doing that again, the moment that you like their page or that you support their movie, you're saying this behavior might be bad, but not bad enough. Mm-hmm, but not bad enough. I would actually have to say maybe, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'd have to say probably like Jello was anti-free sprinkled. I love our tier system.
Speaker 1:Six green potatoes to continue. You are saying this is okay behavior and when you do that, you can't be upset when things potentially snowball. Because if you have a kid and the kid punches you in the balls because they're upset about something and you don't say anything, you roll with the punches that kid is going to learn that this is an okay thing to do and they are going to continue doing it. And if you suddenly, a year from now, we're like dang, I really hate being punched in the ball by my child it's going to be a lot harder to stop them at this point because they have learned that this is okay behavior and there are no consequences, nothing happens. And so you may have what is initially not that big of a deal.
Speaker 1:You know, something bad happens. You have an actor who does something dumb, a writer who does something dumb, somebody who says something you don't agree with. But you have to know your own morals and be like that has crossed the line and I'm going to say something and I'm going to immediately kind of put my foot down and be like we're not. We're not doing that anymore, because it has the potential to get so, so, so much worse if left to continue. So I would agree that this is lime Jell-O that I don't know. Maybe the spoon that like mixed up the jello had been an antifreeze or something like that.
Speaker 1:I actually don't know how much antifreeze you would need to put in lime jello to kill somebody, and that's not something I want on my Google search history, so I will not be finding out that information.
Speaker 1:If you would like to look up that information and let us know, if you would like to look up that information and let us know, you can write to us at toxic, at awesome life skillscom. You can also find us on social media, on Facebook, on Instagram and, technically, blue sky. I have not gotten around to opening it back up after I created it, but we are there and with that, that has been the toxic cooking show. We'll see you guys next week. Bye, bye.
