American Irony is Exhausting

Some people avoid the news-- too depressing, too overwhelming; while others consume the news like they're watching a football game-- enjoying the spectacle of chaos. Perhaps, like me, you don't fall into either camp, but at the same time you're feeling a bit exhausted by the current landscape of American politics and American pop culture.  Let's get cozy as we count the irony that abounds around us. Hey, perhaps we can make it a drinking game-- or better yet, a game of strip tease. 

Music by Mound City by Coleman Hawkins (recorded 1929)

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This podcast is recorded in a style that pays homage to talents like Miss Monitor (Tedi Thurman) and explores topics designed to stimulate conversations. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Take a good view of what the hell's going on around here. I'm the lovely Ray, and I'm delighted to spend a little time with you today. I was born and raised in the US, but over the past few years, I've been fortunate enough to spend some time chatting online with people from all over the world. Thanks to a little website called Cambly. I don't have any strong opinions about the Cambly English Learning Platform. But my conversations with folks from other countries have left me with a lot to think about. So, in this podcast, I thought I'd share a little with you and maybe we can keep the conversation going. Morning. This podcast is about stripping down and having real conversations. So, if you're looking for someone to dress things up, well, as the old saying goes, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. I save my lipstick for the stage, dearest, and dressing up for the bedroom. I do not dress up my conversations with friends. So I'd love to have a chat. Hello, darlings. It's lovely to chat with you again. I found myself in a bit of an ironic situation earlier today. You see, I had been on hold for over an hour. I was waiting to speak to a manager at one of the tech industry's major manufacturers of home computers. Over an hour waiting. Waiting for a human. A human to connect to. And mind you, in order to get to a human, I had to find myself first battling an AI support agent. Where this AI support agent just wanted to ask me a few questions in order to connect me to the right person and ask me some more questions to hopefully troubleshoot because the AI agent would be able to do all of the same functions that a human could. Now, darlings, you and I both know that when it comes to being assisted by a robot, a series of programs input-output, well, let's just say that it's not exactly the same as being assisted by a human, despite all of the scripts that a corporation will provide to their employees. Yes. Because you see, when a robot tells you that it understands your frustration, the natural response is, you can't fucking understand my frustration. You have no feelings. You are a series of programs. You are code your robot. You're simply reciting what someone has programmed you to say. And to be fair, one could say that an employee, a human, is also simply reciting what they were told to say, what they were programmed to say. But the very difference is, with a human, you can, hopefully, at some point connect with them on a fellow human level. You can break through the cycle of the repeated script and get them to maybe think outside the box. Or at the very least, connect your call to a human who has a different script that will allow for some sort of progress to be made. And so I do wonder if these corporations that are installing these AI support systems, if they are doing it so that individuals can get assistance much faster, if they are doing it to fill gaps in their workforce needs, or if they're doing it to save money, if they're doing it to make the consumer, the client, so fatigued with the whole process of trying to get assistance, get change, get acknowledgement, get something fucking done, that we simply just give up. We hang up, we move on. Maybe we're too tired to even bother to create some sort of online video where we talk about how pissed off we are. Maybe we're too tired to bother complaining to the better business viewer or the Department of Transportation or the Fair Credit Reporting Division or whoever handles oversight for that corporation. After all, the game of sue them until they run out of money is very much the American way and has been practiced for decades. Possibly centuries. And so simply wearing out the poor sucker who decided to take that flight by that computer, invest their time, money, energy into that service. Well, the majority of us will just fucking give up. Move on, spend our dollars elsewhere, and not bother to complain. We'll simply shut up. But I'm not exactly like the majority, in case you haven't figured that out. And I guess if you're listening, baby, neither are you. And so I do hope that you keep speaking up and speaking out. Now with that being said, as I found myself in this ironic situation, I also realized that the year 2025 has just been a year filled with irony. And yet, is it really just 2025 or has this been the case for some time? And maybe I just find things have slowed down enough in my own personal life where I can really take a good view of what the hell's going on around here. I don't know. But I would be curious to know what you think, what you feel. I mean, I can't be the only one who finds it ironic that the winner of the Nobel Priest Prize, Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria Karina Machado, Nobel Peace Prize winner. I can't help but find it ironic that she's praising Donald Trump, who is continuing to have the US Air Force, I believe it is, bomb boats coming from Venezuela, as well as Colombia now. All under the guise that these boats are smuggling drugs, carrying drugs, sending drugs to the US, and so the U.S. must take the fight to international waters. But how the fuck does that make any sense? We haven't proven that there are any drugs on these boats. The two survivors of one of the more recent attacks, both of them were in such bad shape physically and mentally, those survivors will not be talking for a very long time. And so, under what legal justification, what legal rights do we have to take this war on drugs to the international waters? I mean, maybe maybe those boats were carrying drugs. Maybe those drugs were meant for other countries. Or maybe those boats weren't carrying drugs at all. And the US is acting like a big bully, believing that they can do whatever wherever they want. And yet he doesn't want to talk about his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, is resisting releasing all of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein's investigation. And now is calling for Democrats who had connections to Jeffrey Epstein to be investigated. Well, why the fuck would we just investigate Democrats? Is it because you, sir, have something to hide or something that you are not comfortable sharing? I mean, if the man's done no wrong, then what harm is it to simply let whatever information contains your name to be known out there because you know you've done no wrong.

unknown 11:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

It's a bit ironic, isn't it? Let's stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein, but let's talk about my political opponents that were involved with Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah. I can't be the only one who finds it ironic that the very generation that has complained about not being able to find a job, low wages, also says college is a waste of time, and that they want ChatGPT to do all the work for them. I want ChatGPT to find the answer for me. I should be allowed to use ChatGPT to check the answers for my tests. I gotta get the grade, make the score. Even reality personality Kim Kardashian confessed to using Chat GPT while preparing for her bar test. Yeah. So let me get this straight. We want to have jobs available for young people, but those same young people don't want to get the necessary education to do those jobs. And those entry-level jobs are being taken over by AI. And those same young people insist they should be able to use AI in order to help them find the answers to whatever it is that they are searching an answer for, as opposed to doing the research, doing the work, and looking up the answer for themselves. I mean, they do have the internet to assist in ways that generations before simply did not. Long gone are the days where you have to trek to the library and pull a little car, search stacks of books, hopefully get the help of a librarian in order to assist you in your efforts. Long gone are the days where doing research can take hours upon hours, months upon months. Now, with the click of a button, we can assemble people for a research study, we can assemble people for a feedback session, you can go online and pay somebody on Fiverr for quality assurance on your website. It's all so convenient, so much time is being saved, and yet, with all of this time saved, what are we doing with our time? Watching TikTok videos, people dancing. Oh my goodness. Because oh how dare these tech companies make phones addictive and listen to our conversations? How dare they? They do not have my consent and yet oh wouldn't it be cool if I got these meta Arabian glasses and filmed others without their consent? Isn't it ironic? Don't you think? Oh little too ironic. Yeah, I really do think what a lovely Alanis Morissette song. I think I'm gonna have to crank that up after this recording. But I don't come onto this podcast just to rant. No no no no no darling. I mean, let's face it, you can go to any TikTok, YouTube, Instagram reel and find somebody complaining about something that doesn't create change. Now, darlings, my goal is to stimulate conversation and whenever possible, sprinkle in some recommendations for what we all could do a little better. I am intrigued by the fascination with cell phones that aren't smart. I believe the children call it the dumb phone. And the resurgence of digital cameras that actually slip into one's pocket. Oh my. Yes, it is true that the Polaroid camera had a brief run in popularity, and there are people who still use them, and yet they haven't really returned to their glory day like they used to. You know, it's wild that parents will rail at board meetings, scream from the mountaintops that they need for their child to have a phone because they need to be able to reach their child at all times. Does your child need to have internet access at all times? Because for decades, kids were growing up without having internet access twenty-four hours a day. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so I just find it wild when kids who are struggling to read, kids who may be disrespectful to their parents, you can define disrespectful in the way you choose, darling. These same kids are getting smartphones for Christmas and birthdays. That's crazy. But that's just me. Maybe it's just me. Maybe maybe I'm just out of touch. Or maybe I got my finger on the pulse. Maybe I am very aware of what is happening, and I'm very in touch with how I feel about these things. And I want you to be in touch too, baby. I want you to want to reach out and touch someone with your thoughts, with your ideas, with your opinions. I want for you to be brave enough, bold enough to take a stand and not be too weary from battling AI agents and be ready to say no no no no no no no. Not only do I insist on a human connection, do I insist on true feeling, but I also insist on change because I will not be beaten into submission, be driven to a level of exhaustion where I just give up. Because you, my darling, have worked too damn hard, and so have I. So well, the fat cats out there would simply love it if we just laid back and took it. That's not how this is gonna play out. I'm gonna be honest with you. Do what you gotta do, baby. But whatever you do, do not give up. Ah, thank you so much for stopping by for a chat. I know I feel better. And I hope you do too. Until next time. It's been lovely to chat.