Off the top, some Patreon shout outs.
We've got D bag. Yes.
LM and Carrie Mayorello, those are some listeners who gave a
little bit extra on the Patreon. Thank you so much.
You could sign up for that Patreon at $5 a month you get
weekly premium episodes. The last one covered all things
Jeffrey Epstein TPUSA Super Bowl show, which I'm sure will make
another appearance on next week's premium in the Katie
Miller podcast. Personal favorite of Mike and
mine. Also Trump going to the bathroom
in his pants. Oh yeah, did Trump shit himself?
Anyway, welcome back to posting through it.
You know what it is? I'm Jared Holt.
And I'm Michael Edison Hayden. And I'm Byron McCoy.
Today's episode is another installment in our Who the Hell
Biographical series, where we take a closer look at notable
figures associated with the online right.
You can scroll back in our feed to find previous installments.
We've covered everyone from Nick Fuentes to Candace Owens to Dave
Portnoy to Matt Taibbi to Bill Maher.
Today's subject is Steven Crowder, who is one of the
biggest podcasters in the conservative movement.
Certainly at his peak was arguably the biggest.
While he's not exactly a household name, he is undeniably
a big deal in right wing media. According to the metrics that
Crowder has shared, there have been days where his show has
been the most watched live stream online, including
Election Night 2024. Steven Crowder has two and a
half million followers on X, more than 3,000,000 followers on
Facebook, 1 1/2 on Instagram, 1.2 on True Social.
His podcast called Louder with Crowder bills itself as the
number one conservative Daily Show.
He has nearly 6,000,000 followers on YouTube and nearly
2 million followers on Rumble, an alternative video platform.
His podcast episodes regularly earn hundreds of thousands and
sometimes millions of views each.
So you getting the idea here? He's a fairly big deal, at least
in the world of conservative politics.
This episode will look at Crowder's rise to fame, seeking
to explain how a guy raised in Canada came to become one of the
most prolific right wing media personalities of the last decade
here in the US. We'll make stops along the way
to cover the personal and professional scandals that have
at points threatened to take his career, and we'll explain what
the deal is with the show he's made his name hosting.
Some points in this timeline are a little murky, but we've tried
our best to corroborate as much as we can in the process.
We sent requests for comment, requests for information for
media contacts available on Steven Crowder's website, and a
few other sources that you'll hear along the way.
We even invited Steven Crowder to sit down and chat with us
ahead of recording, but at the time we're taping this, we did
not receive a response. Joining us to help explain
Crowder is Byron McCoy Co host the podcast Louder Than Crowder,
where he and his Co host actually sit down and watch his
content slop for the rest of us. We sure do Thanks Mike Jared so
much for having me on this show. Big fan of both of the the you
know, both of you, the work you do.
It was actually shitpost as well as QAA fever dreams rest in
peace. And of course the goats over
acknowledged fight that were very influential in me starting
this little program louder than Crowder, which of course is the
podcast about the podcast louder with Crowder.
But yeah, you're right, Steven is unexpectedly influential.
He's managed to keep his head down enough that he doesn't
become like the headline news story, but he remains, like you
said, one of the most popular, unfortunately right wing
conservative commentators that are out there.
Well, I mean, he's definitely he's he was better.
He's dipping a bit. But yeah, he's done this.
He's been able to kind of silo an audience of what he wishes
were young men between the ages of 16 and 30, but more likely
uncle aged and up very much like VFW hall folks.
Friends of his dad. We always like to say, you know,
claiming to both be an alternative to liberal late
night comedy shows as well as the only source for truthful
news. You know, after his show, he
suggests that you turn off the news and come back the next day
when he's on. That's the only media you should
be taking in. But.
What made you so interested in Steven Crowder?
Because as you know, you and I were working together doing the
research for this episode. I I kept coming to the
impression that Steven Crowder is woefully under covered in the
press and like completely underappreciated for the star
that he is in conservative media.
I came to to Steven and kind of all of this, this, I guess,
genre of contents after the failed Hillary Clinton campaign
for presidency and I started digging into conservative
content to kind of understand how we could get to the place we
found ourselves in 2016. I was start out with Ben
Shapiro, tuned in to get off my lawn with Gavin McGinnis.
I listen to Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson, Milo Yiannopoulos.
Even even early back before the Albo algo was as like tight as
it is now, my algo was fully cooked.
Folks listening may have seen the change My mind videos pop up
on YouTube. They don't really do that so
much anymore, but I know that that's how I was introduced to
him back in 2017. It was the I'm pro gun changed
my mind. I, I wasn't terribly political
at the time and wasn't really educated in, you know, much of
this. I I was watching suggested
videos on a Friday night with friends and me being from
Montana and having like veteran friends, one of the one of the
people I was hanging out with that night was a veteran.
I kind of got tricked by Steven. It's like, hey, this guy, he's
kind of level headed, you know, talking about gun culture.
And at the end he convinced people even to go register for
to to pick up a gun in a week later, he went shooting with
them. And I was like, who the hell is
this guy? He's not level headed.
Spoiler alert guys. And I continue to take in
Steven. And after some time yelling to
myself about his content, I started doing it into a
microphone, which has been a little bit more helpful.
So that's kind of my, my light little journey into this descent
into, yeah, Crowder, someone, I think he's been not covered as
much as he should be. For Full disclosure here, Jared,
just to say like you, you, you folks are experts in Crowder.
And I had my only experience with him has been just seeing
him seeing his stupid ass sitting in a chair as like a
meme. So I'm actually more
representative of the audience probably.
We're like, who is this? Who is this insufferable mother
fucker who is who is always making a smug face?
I'm, I'm here, I'm recovering from shingles and you know, I'm
trying. I'm doing my, I'm going to be
doing my best to fight through this and, and, and I'm looking
forward to being water boarded with Stevens.
Incredible jokes. But the sales pitch like that, I
think it's time we start answering the big question,
which is who the hell? Who the hell?
Who the hell is Steven Crowder? It's July 7th, 1989.
The Grateful Dead plays a historic show in Philadelphia,
drawing more than 100,000 fans out to John F Kennedy Stadium
for the venue's last concert before it was shut down.
The first commercial Internet providers are starting to pop
up. Political revolutions are under
way in Eastern Europe. The world is irreversibly
changing. Far away Steven Crowder was born
in Detroit, MI, while the subject of today's episode was
born in the Motor City. His family moved to Montreal
when he was three years old. In other words, he grew up
Canadian. Stevens childhood.
You know, we're drawing from a Daily Beast profile in 2013 for
a lot of this. Steven Crowder told the
publication at the time that his parents grew up religious but
weren't too observant before the birth of him and his older
brother Jordan. After that, he said his parents
recommitted to the faith as born again Christians.
Steven said his parents really stressed faith to him and his
brother, particularly when he came to sex.
He said he got the talk when he was just four years old because
they didn't want me to think about it as something that
couldn't be discussed, just something that is meant to be
between a husband and a wife. This will come back up later.
In school, Steven said he was often bullied.
He described himself as a comic book nerd and woefully
unathletic, which kind of explains his frustration with
any adaptation to comic book source material, things like
gender swap, sexuality or any ounce of androgyny or
asymmetrical haircuts, as well as his distaste for the big game
and his halftime and the halftime show Satanic rituals.
But yeah, he also, this is interesting, got really into
women swimming around 2022, which is interesting.
Weird timing there, huh? He told The Daily Beast that he
spent most of his childhood afraid, recalling the time he
walked away from a fight against a bully out of fear.
And it was that experience, he said, that led him into showbiz.
He didn't want to be afraid anymore.
So that's what we've got for his early childhood.
But at just 12 years old, Steven Crowder breaks into show
business. He lands a role voicing a
character named Alan Powers, AKA The Brain on the PBS children's
show Arthur. This voice acting gig is pretty
short lived, but it did get Stevens foot in the door of the
entertainment industry. It remains his most mainstream
credit to date. Also he I mean it was an early
meme like the the clenched fist meme that you see is is the the
Brian powers AKA the brain clenching his fist.
So Oh yeah, before the The change my mind, Steven had that
early hit in Meme Meme world. He would though go on to have
minor roles in a handful of productions.
He also did a commercial for a Go, a yogurt and a tube,
basically the Canadian version of Go Gurt.
Did you finish the tubes? No.
Did you finish all the tubes? No.
Dad, did you finish all the tubes?
So that he's the kid there. He's the kid running, running
around saying, hey, did you eat? Did you eat the yogurt in a
tube? And the commercial ends with the
dad kind of smiling at him and whatever.
I. I'm always fascinated by the the
child actor or psychology and how the different directions
that can go. I assume it's going to only go
in a good direction here. Clearly, Yeah.
That as as far as I know, is his first like on camera credit as a
child actor. But he he goes on to do, you
know, to have some credits in a couple small production films,
right, Byron? Yeah, I mean, his biggest film
credit was for this 2009 Christian drama called To Save a
Life. It's a story about a popular kid
who re evaluates his life after a friend commits suicide.
And it's such a kind of tonally bizarre film.
It's almost got like, Van Wilder energy until this kid comes into
a school with a gun and, like, publicly takes his life in the
hallway. And it bounces back and forth
between themes like that. You know, Steven, though, his
character is pretty much the Comic Relief.
He plays Doug Moore, and his nickname that's assigned to him
in that in that film is The Big Ugly, which we like to jokingly
call him from time to time on our program.
But yeah, he's he's kind of like the main character's douchey
friend. Where?
Where's mine? Why?
Don't you get your friend and get?
One for you. OK, you know I don't have a
girlfriend since you have no latte either.
She. Got you on that one, dude.
Yeah, you know, your mom got me, OK?
She's an attractive woman. Your mom and I, we get along.
I'll talk to you about that later.
The Big Ugly has jokes saying something funny.
Call me the big ugly one more time, I'm going to kick your
ass. Sorry.
I'm sorry. Something dude, OK.
No, no hard feelings. You want to get out of here.
You know, I don't need much to skip gargulous.
The whole film is available on YouTube.
That Bad Boys got 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, which I shouldn't
qualifies qualifies as a stinker.
Someone likes it. But Byron, you pointed us
towards this Q&A with the cast from the movie.
It doesn't seem like they're big fans of Steven.
Jared, the vibes are bad. And the final cut?
Doug was more of a jerk. Than funny, I know I came across
as much more unlikeable than kind of a wisenheimer.
I was like, I, I, I want to hit me.
So yeah, I I know I did. Go ahead, you have a nice.
No, we'll stop the tape so. So so his Co stars in the film
are just like, yeah, go ahead, just punch this motherfucker in
the face you. Know I don't think.
They're they're, they're joking around.
But what? What is it?
Behind every joke is a grain of truth.
Yeah, and most certainly there's no like good moments of, of, of
Doug, like on the cutting room floor.
There's absolutely no way that they would have made him that
unlikable if that wasn't him. So I I have trouble believing
that. So he starts doing stand up
comedy, if I have that correctly.
That's around the time when he starts picking up stand up
comedy and he actually finds a little success in it, which is
also, I think pretty rare for people who experiment with stand
up comedy. The early days are kind of
tough. He's been working on his stand
up career for a very long time. I think even before his role in
in To Save a Life, but he got his big break at just for laps
in Montreal, where in 2006 when he was only 18, and this is
true, he was the youngest comedian to ever perform at the
festival. And that's something that was
kind of significant because the youngest person before him was
actually Chris Rock, who is 19. So having performed there at 18
earned him quite a bit of attention.
It got him booked on XM radio shows, which that was a big deal
back then. That was like one of the major
ways that comedians were being found was on XM Satellite Radio.
And then he he claims to have toured across North America.
I don't have any information specifically stating dates that
he performed but. Yeah, I tried to find tour dates
and I spent so long trying to find some archived video
somewhere of like his comedy sets and I I found pages where
the videos used to exist, but no videos to be found.
It seems like a lot of that it got lost in the the dredge of
the Internet. But he had a promising start in
stand up, right? I mean, he went on and did more
stuff, right? This is huge.
Yeah. This is one that I was really
hoping that you would have been able to find because I've also
searched high and low for this. He went on to win the National
So You Think You're Funny Myspace comedy contest, which,
Yeah, I, I haven't been able to find any footage.
You found something from 2008 Archived on his personal Myspace
page. Yeah, yeah.
I found an archive talking about of of his 2008 Myspace page and
the tagline he has on his profile is It's getting crowded
in here. I actually totally pause.
I'm going to. I'm going to be sick.
This is rough. This is more a success than like
most people that show up to an open mic night get you know, you
get to perform at one of the biggest comedy festivals in the
world, but especially Canada and people are saying your name next
to Chris Rock, right? So seems to be a pretty
promising start, but Stevens stand up career ends up being
pretty short in the end of it. But despite this Steven Crowder
like he makes this sort of short lived stint.
This like early early success in stand of comedy, a core part of
his identity, core part of his origin story.
But from everything I found it seems he just flamed out super
early. I mean, he, he on occasion we'll
do a quote UN quote stand up show.
I, I caught him not too far away from here, maybe 3-3 hours away
three years ago. I watched him perform.
I don't know what he was preparing to do with this.
It seems like he was going to do a stand up special.
But most of the jokes that weren't just kind of racist
observations of the town he was in were jokes that he had
performed when he was 19. I've I've compared shows that he
had when he was like underage, like not able to drink in clubs
in LA. And he was telling these jokes
as a full grown adult man in his mid 30s.
So. Playing the role of the audience
member who has never really encountered Crowder before.
Just in terms of looks, what he looks like, this is a guy who
kind of looks like a, like a, you know, an index finger turned
into a person. I don't know how to describe.
He just kind of like straight up and down white guy.
There's not much other way, other way to just to describe
him. He comes out on the stage.
What's the energy like on stage when Crowder comes out to to,
you know, rock the mic? And is the crowd very much there
to see him? Are they there to see other
people? I mean, it was electric, Mike.
It was, it was entirely electric.
I the time I saw him, the venue was in half capacity because we
were just coming out of COVID. This was the first time in a
while that I had went in public unmasked.
So that was really cool. I sat at a table because I went
by myself. No one would go with me.
Sat at a table with a nurse who was complaining about, you know,
limitations on her job and was talking about the Benny Johnson
podcast, which is pretty cool. Yeah.
I mean, vibes for the most part, they're not comedy fans.
They're just fans of his show. You know, the same thing could
be said when people go to, like, Joe Rogan stand up shows or even
Marc Maron. You know, these people are
comedians. But I think first and foremost,
at this point in their career, they're podcasters, so.
People do love the local racist jokes though, I'll tell you
that. Big fan, so that you're in that.
We'll get into some of that in a minute.
But closing up his early life around the time he's 18 years
old, he moves back to the US attends Champlain College in
Burlington, Vt. He drops out after two
semesters. But he will also cite this in
his origin story in his credentials being like, listen,
I attended 2 semesters at a College in Vermont and I took
some courses on journalism and media, like one O 1 courses
right? I it's weird credential to flex,
but whatever. I'm not sure exactly why he
dropped out of college, but I think it's possible he thought
he had a chance to make it big in show business.
I couldn't blame him if he dropped out because he wanted to
chase that dream, but I don't know for sure.
I mean, I dropped out of college to be a touring post hardcore
singer if in a band for years, but and look at me now, everyone
here I am no one thing that I think before we jump away from
his early life that I don't know if we discussed is the role of
his dad. You you mentioned his father and
his mother became religious after the birth of his older
brother, but it was Darren Crowder who I think imprinted
his beliefs on Steven more than anyone else.
I think that also Darren was involved as his manager when he
got the roles that he did in, in film, you know, from the Arthur
role to to save a life to he did a movie.
Goodness gracious. What was it?
It's called 3 Needles, which had Chloe 70 and Lucy Liu in it, as
well as Sean Ashmore. He had a small role in that.
So like he had a chance to follow his dream like, and I
think it was, you know, because of his father, you know, kind of
supporting him in this, that he wanted to do it.
I think that a driving force of Steven Crowder's to make his dad
proud so. In a 2018 interview with Ben
Shapiro, Crowder said he has aspirations of being an
award-winning actor. Sorry, yeah, I got blindsided by
that. And if that didn't work, maybe
hosting a late night comedy show?
Oh my God, has anybody interested aside, has I ever
seen Todd Salon's film storytelling?
This is like the this is this is like Scooby the the main
character from that where he's just tells people he's going to
host a late night comedy show and everybody starts laughing at
him anyway. Adding it to my queue.
Steven Crowder would never realize his dreams of making it
big in Hollywood. Why?
You should have put spoiler
alerts in here. Instead, he pivoted to another
form of entertainment. Is it entertainment?
I don't know. What?
What do we call it? Political commentary?
Is that what we're going to say it is?
Polka with political commentary. So, political commentary in In
2009, Steven started uploading political commentary videos to
YouTube. You may be wondering Steven
seemed to have a fairly promising stand up comedy
career. Seemed to Why did he pivot into
political commentary? Well, a 2009 installment of
Crowder's Lone Wolf Diaries offers us some clues.
You want to read this, Byron? Of course more than anything
when it comes to the entertainment industry there is
an unspoken policy no conservatives allowed.
Sure I can explain in graphic detail the grandeur of my
sexcapades. This is hypothetical of course
as my sex life is non existent. Or go off on an anti Christian
tirade. Too much applause.
If I were a Dame I would surely make do I have to come on?
I would surely make OK I. Got this.
You you signed up for the episode.
You got to ride the train. I would surely make insightful
remarks about my monthly cycle and the shortcomings of men in
the boudoir. All all too critical accolades.
Begin uttering the words Muslim terrorism sucks, however, and
you will literally begin to hear the sound of sphincters
puckering throughout your general vicinity.
He sure thinks a lot about sex for a guy who proclaimed at this
time to have no sex life. Yeah.
Also, he's listening so closely to the air for the hope of
hearing a sphincter bucker, which that's a that's a weird
mental image that he's got. He's he's kind of jam crammed
into something that doesn't have anything to do with asses.
You, you don't do that, Mike. I know like whenever I'm on the
bus or whatever I my ears are tuned sharp.
If you know, you know, I'm, I'm not shy of freaky, freaky
thoughts, but I just, I just find, you know, possibly because
of that, I'm able to to get a little bit of a red flag.
The better fact that he's like looking in the room and thinking
about sphincters. So his YouTube videos at first
are kind of formulaic. They're all a few minutes long
and he's uploading them every Thursday.
And some of these are just brutal, brutal cringe.
I'm going to play a clip from the first video he uploaded
titled Go Team Israel featuring Obama's moobs, man boobs.
But then Byron, I, I want you to just tell us a little bit about
these early uploads a lot. Of people have been siding with
Palestine, there's a lot of anti-Semitism going on.
Some people are like, well, you know, the only reason it's like
this is because Israel oppresses them.
OK, let's assume for a minute that that's true.
All right, Why doesn't Palestine just oppress Israel then?
Well, because they can't. And why is that?
Well, because they don't have the power, the technology to do
so. Why is that?
Because, because Because. And then her head explodes.
I know you wouldn't expect it, but actually some craniums have
exploded in this thought process.
It's a scientific fact. My craniums, they're right.
I mean a lot of these other countries are living in the dark
ages, but we have to ask why is that?
Israel has arguably the best military Intel in the world.
They crap in sand dunes. Israel has a high quality of
living and is often at the forefront of modern technology
they sell. Rugs.
Why do you think that is? Yeah.
Fucking you're the one Arab guy in the show.
Trigger, trigger warning, man, I'm a little tired with the with
the fucking shingles. So but I will get up and I'll
throw some hands over that. What do you fucking talk?
Who the fucking shit in Dunes, motherfucker?
This dumb kid, Yeah, sitting on on YouTube.
It's not very subtle. No.
And honestly, yeah, I mean, that's that's that could be the
theme of this. Yeah.
No, you tell me to to describe things like the dark Pelosi with
water boring boarding the Obama song.
I gots a Peace Prize, which I I think was the one that really
broke through the mainstream. These are all kind of formulaic
of the time YouTube videos, you know, kind of mimicking the
style of early influencers like Jenna Marbles or Smosh or Shane
Dawson, but bringing to the table kind of the crass, frankly
gross political beliefs that he's talking about at the dinner
table at his house. So it's, I think it's surprising
to him that it that it wasn't more successful because he puts
a lot of effort into this being very much of the time and like
puts a lot of time into thinking about YouTube as a platform
which, you know, eventually follows him to where he ends up.
But. I want to inject one other point
that I think might be useful contacts for people who are
listening and regularly listen to our show.
You might be like shocked at like how you know, slavishly he
lathers up Israel here because things have changed pretty
radically in that like, yeah, the the, the, the, the populist
right has become much more openly anti-Semitic And those
those kind of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have become
really dominant on the right and kind of held off almost at this
point only by Trump himself. They're really, really growing.
It's almost hard to imagine someone doing something like
this now. This is what you what you do
this now online and he would have been hounded by people
being like good goy or whatever, like good goy behavior, good goy
content or whatever, good goy slop.
I mean, it's, it is a, it is a thing of its time.
Yeah, yeah. And this kind of Islamophobia,
you know, just open, you know, racism towards Arab people is
also very of the time. And I don't say that to write
Stephen a blank check and like let him off the hook here, but
also contacts for that. I do want to say, of all the
early videos I watched, the best 1 is where he's walking around
sticking a microphone in people's faces and asking them
questions about Joe Biden while dressed up as a cartoon bear.
A Big Bear. Yeah, he's doing man on the
street interviews asking people who Joe Biden was, and I
guarantee you he didn't just publish absolutely every one of
those and kept everything in full context, right?
You didn't just approach people dressed as a bear to confuse
them on the street and then only publish the dumbest takes or
most confused or I guess dismissive takes, right?
Do if a bear walked up to me, a guy dressed as a bear walked up
to me and started asking me about politics, I would feel a
responsibility to just unload the stupidest shit in my head
just like that. The dumbest passing thought I've
had while like taking a shit and just give it to the bear the
bear craves. There's also the there's also
the Nick, Nick Shirley angle to this also, where it's just if
somebody comes up to you in that context, in any weird context
and puts a microphone in your face, you're like, Oh my God,
it's a pedophile. I better get out of here.
And don't, don't forget that there's there's two bodyguards
behind the camera in, in face masks and stuff like that.
Yeah. Normal shit.
Really cool normal stuff and I'm feel feel comfortable talking
about children in a daycare with you.
How benevolence, Benevolence. Amazing.
The brightest minds give that. Give that kid a Pulitzer Prize.
Anyway, back to Steven. He's still trying to find
something to do with his stand up at this time, but it changes
quite a bit. He's got a new target audience.
Tell me about this. Yeah, I mean, around this time
he starts doing stand up for tea party events and I believe we
have a couple examples. Are you going to play some of
these, Jared? Yeah, yeah, We have some clips.
Let's let's listen to Steven Crowder's stand up.
This first one is from 2009, I believe, to the Tea Party rally.
He's some of the entertainment. Weather the scorching he give it
to yourselves right now for stand out here for the cause.
You guys stick it through man. And you know what that means The
global warming alarmists are out in flock seeing these people.
They're like have you been outside?
It's sunny and warm and it's not even mid-july proof of global
warming for you. We had a different word for it
as a kid. What was it?
Oh yeah, summer. Boom.
I have a friend who's actually, they're militant
environmentalists out here right now.
We got the cap and trade tax. Yeah, let's cheer for the cap
and trade tax. All right?
Relax. I didn't pass it OK.
Awesome. You are correct, Sir, Yes.
This just really good shit. And and this is an audio
podcast, but in these videos, the camera crew keeps cutting to
the audience to get their reactions.
And I told Byron and Mike before we were recording, the people in
this crowd are like the oldest people I've ever seen.
Which tracks for a tea party rally around this time.
This next clip is from Tea Con Midwest.
This is a couple years later, but it's another example of the
kind of comedy he was doing for Tea Party activists.
And the media, though, they have a they, they like Obama, they
like this guy. I don't want to say the media
has a toward love affair with Barack Obama or even if Brian
Williams wants to be his girlfriend, but.
Do you guys get it? The punchline is that he's gay.
Oh, huh, it. Feels like there are multiple
angles to try to get Barack Obama to be gay.
There was the story about him smoking crack in the limousine.
That was like. Yeah, that was like the pseudo
journalistic 1. And then there would be like, so
many people want to have gay sex with Obama, like in the comedian
style, where there's just a different ways to try to make
him gay. Yeah, and when that didn't work,
they were like, well, maybe his wife's secretly a man.
Maybe his wife's a guy. Let's let's, let's, let's pitch
that one, Yeah. And that one's sticking around.
There's no way that guy's straight.
The problem solved. How it is say.
Let's listen to a little more of this.
I mean, you had to name this guy the sexiest man in America.
Barack Obama by People magazine. Really.
The sex man in America. But you give that to Hugh
Jackman, not the guy who looks like the photo negative of
Alfred Newman, okay? I think it's interesting.
Even people in the crowd are like, oh.
Yeah, that was that was. Don't know about that one.
Do you like 1 style of making a joke or even a statement or
doing anything is to definitely don't find someone who is like
objectively more attractive than you and be like, what's up with
everybody finding this person so hot?
I mean, really right. I mean, can you, Can you believe
this? Can you believe that actor
Michael B Jordan is like, what? What on earth are these women
thinking? Are they out of their fucking
minds? Am I right?
Who's got some laughs, right? You know, it's just really, it
doesn't really work very well when you're Steven Crowder
talking about talking about Barack Obama.
I don't know, the sexuality obsession is kind of a bizarre
thing that the right has anyway. I mean, you notice that when Don
Lemon got arrested at the comment sections on pretty much
absolutely everything, focus on his sexuality and what's
happening to him in prison. In their heads, you know they're
obsessed with the junk. Can't get it out.
Even if you were thinking, well, you give Steven the benefit of
the doubt here, like sure, he's making these videos, but and
he's pursuing stand up, but I just want to play this clip
winding the clock back again a couple years to a tea Party
rally in Dallas. Just to be clear that Steven
Crowder is all about the Tea Party movement.
The. Dallas Tea Party.
Come on everybody. Not that little Elvin, Harry
Reid, not John Penn. These people.
God Bless America. It's a mic drop at the end.
He didn't pick that up. God Bless America, Mic Drop.
Yeah, sometimes you got to do it.
So he gets noticed by Pyjama Media, now called PJ Media and
owned by Salem Media Group. Are they still kicking around,
by the way? And Breitbart News and Files
video columns under their big Hollywood vertical.
Most of the posts appear to be aggregating his YouTube videos,
but there's some occasional blog in the mix there too.
The first few with 2009 datelines are titled Getting
Louder with Crowder. I guess they found a rhyme,
right? So.
Yeah, yeah. That would go on to be the name
of his podcast, right? So I was a little unclear
exactly on the timeline of Steven Crowder's early work in
right wing media. I reached out to some folks,
including Steven's team. I reached out to Breitbart.
I reached out to a handful of different folks.
Organizations didn't get a lot of useful information back.
But here is the timeline, the best I could figure out with all
of that in mind. So in January 2009, his first
Breitbart article appears with his byline.
The point of the article is just to promote the second video on
his YouTube channel. I am curious how he got plugged
into Breitbart so early. I don't know if Breitbart had a
like unpaid contributor systems similar to Huffington Post at
the time, right? Like if he could just sign up
and like fill out a couple forms and be able to post on Breitbart
or if he was chosen and that sort of thing.
I didn't get any clarity on that from Breitbart when I reached
out. So there's kind of like two
things he is posting on Breitbart, short little articles
to promote his YouTube videos, which he calls video columns and
written columns of blogs, I guess in a series called Lone
Wolf Diaries in June 2009, the first video on his YouTube
channel with a pyjama media, PJTV, their sort of video
offshoot at the time, a watermark for that brand is on
there. That video was of him
impersonating Keith Olbermann on MSNBC and having a fake argument
with him doing a a parody or like fake.
Like if they had had me on TV, that's this is what I would have
said kind of thing. Would later credit PJTV and I
guess whatever compensation he was getting for these for being
able to up the production value of his videos.
In October 2010, the PJTV watermark is swapped out for a
watermark for a non profit called the National Center for
Public Policy Research. In a 2023 newsletter of theirs I
came across that described itself as a quote communications
and Research Foundation supportive of a strong National
Defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions
to today's public policy problems.
There's some good old Washington DC mumbo jumbo shit.
I'm not sure why this is missing in most of the biographies
you'll find online from Steven because the title card says
louder with Crowder sponsored by National Center.
I reached out to National Center to ask about this and the
spokesperson who responded to me had no idea what I was talking
about or asking about was like, we don't partner or like sponsor
anything. And I was like, well, here's a
post on your website from the time that says Steven had,
quote, completed 18 videos with the nonprofit, which I thought
was kind of a strange choice of word.
It makes me wonder if there was a program or, you know, what
that rate arrangement was like. But we'll just put that as a
footnote here afterwards. This videos are sponsored by
Liberty Alliance, which was a media company spun up in the
remnants of the Tea Party movement.
That doesn't seem to last too long.
That website, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist anymore.
But most importantly, during this time, he also gets the
attention of Fox News, and that offers him a paid contributor
contract. That's like kind of a big deal.
I think wasn't he also one of the youngest contributors at
that point? Well, I mean, if he's under, if
he's under 55, like, yeah, anyway, he starts appearing on
shows like Hannity and Red Eye, etcetera.
Specifically on Red Eye in 2010, Amy Schumer famously questioned
whether he should even call himself a comedian.
My point by saying that, you know, you don't think it should
be used as a bargaining tool. I mean, as far as the kind of
point of the column is that abstinence is the one taboo
issue regarding sex. I mean, it's like, oh, it'll be
a dirty stand up comic. You're cracking new ground
there, Copernicus. But once you talk about
abstinence, everyone all of a sudden they put you like, right
now we have to talk about it, 'cause who is this kid who's
talking about abstinence? Who you know.
Well, it's who's this kid who's. You know, 23 you don't know who
you're gonna be sexually yet, so to talk about it with such
authority and arrogance, I. Don't know who I'm gonna be.
What? You don't know who you're gonna
be sexually yet. You're gonna be into really
weird things in about a decade. Oh.
I have no doubt, I have no doubt.
Trust me. And The thing is it.
Doesn't there should be no. But there should be no
confidence there there. And you know, you slip by the
The Dirty comedian thing, but honestly, you call yourself a
comedian, but you don't do it that much.
Like I go fishing a couple times a year, but I don't introduce
myself on TV as a fisherman. Wow.
Is this not really personal for a concept about abstinence?
I'm saying the whole point is that there's.
No, wow, he's right. You could tell it really seems
to catch him off guard too. He he seems a little upset by
it. He's hurt by that.
I feel like at this point, he's, he's been in a, you know, in
safer territory with not as much pushback.
He's kind of been doing everything again from behind the
screen or, you know, in safe territory.
But Speaking of behind the screen, she's referencing some
columns that he'd done recently as a contributor for Fox about
abstinence. And this is all in his kind of
trademark flowery, overwritten style.
Women are all dames, that kind of stuff.
Those are no longer available on the Fox News website.
They are definitely on the Wayback Machine though and are
very fun to read if you ever get the chance.
Going to my head I like could not buy line a piece like this.
Oh, it's a nightmare. We we we covered it all on the
on the podcast and it was a very painful thing to read his style
very much Tumblr era. But like, I don't know, bro
culture. It's just like some weird blend
of that. It's terrible.
And at Fox, I mean, no one really liked him.
And I'm not surprised. The lovely and talented Victoria
Burger released some DMS that he said he received from the from
from Gutfeld, who you heard in that red eye clip from 2017 in
which Greg said that he once saw Crowder sitting cross legged at
a bar and ordering milk. Yeah, not even chocolate milk.
No flavor in the milk. Just just a glass of milk cross
legged on the floor of a bar. He he says that Crowder calls
himself Gutfeld, that is, says that Crowder calls himself a
comedian but never performs. Suggests that Crowder has quote
issues with his sexuality and claims everyone at Fox News
hates working with him. Thick Burgers an amazing
satirist, but we reached out to him to make sure that those
screenshots of messages he received from Greg Gutfeld were
legit and not, you know, a bit. And he said they are 100% real.
Love that. With exclamation points.
That's a Victoria guarantee, and Victoria is definitely going to
make a cameo and we when Mike Sternovich gets to Who the hell
is treatment? Oh, absolutely.
Around this time our boy Crowder is doing speaking circuit
circuit on college campuses. The College Republican Club
invited him to speak and he went to do right wing stand up and
discussion. There are some light There's
some light coverage in university student papers of
this and the reviews are lackluster.
Seems most people found him kind of annoying and thought his
comedy was too obviously pushing conservative talking points.
Always a huge shock there. Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's the thing we've talked about on prior episodes,
you know, where, you know, they're like, why aren't there
any conservative comedians or right wing comedians?
Or we talked about it, I think in the context of Dave Rubin
maybe. He got a little mini one on our
premium, yeah. It's like these people are
trying to be funny, but there's like so ideological that it
makes it not funny, right? You, you have to be like kind of
light hearted. Otherwise, you're just like, you
know, formatting your political rant with the occasional
punchline. Yeah, you can't directly
reference policy in your your stand up bits.
I just don't think it works unless you're on, you know, at I
think where he was on C-SPAN, there's a great clip of him that
the polls where he's wearing a a turquoise sweater with a polo
shirt underneath. But yeah, the same with Midwest
Tcon, like, he wasn't even really killing there.
And he thinks that he can take that to a college campus and not
be seen as boring and pushing conservative talking points.
Yeah, I I wouldn't be surprised to read that review.
If all your talking points are about just like what's on Fox
News and being like Muslims, am I right?
College kids are going to be like, huh, What?
I mean, maybe less so now that everybody's like, wired into
social media. But around that time, I mean, I
just can't imagine this landed very well.
No, this is Dane Cook era. Like someone's you've got to be
splashing water in your face and making yourself look like an
alien from the Alien films. Yeah, you've got to fart into
the microphone. That's what they created.
That's funny. Honestly, it always works.
Jumping up to 2012 now, he's still a Fox News contributor.
And this is around the time I first heard about Steven
Crowder. But I'm like, a sick degenerate
when it comes to politics. And, like, I've spent most of my
life staring into the void. Tell us about what happens with
Crowder. Oh, I mean, this is just when
Crowder absolutely gets his shit rocked by a guy at a union
protest in Michigan. Definitely one of the, you know,
moments where he broke through, at least in main mainstream, you
know, political coverage. I guess it's.
Also viral on Twitter in a sort of non partisan way.
Like just it was just everywhere.
Oh, absolutely. I was going to say kind of like
Richard Spencer getting punched, but that is certainly partisan
and delightful. Still to watch to this day.
Showing off that frog pin. I love it.
It's a Pepe. But yeah, Crowder, he, he edits
this pretty deceptively and puts it up on YouTube and it gets
picked up by his good old friends at Fox News where he was
still a contributor. Apparently he was there with
Americans for Prosperity, which is the the Koch affiliated
libertarian conservative political advocacy group.
But eventually, the unedited footage of this confrontation,
it pointed more towards Steven or his aggressive behavior may
have instigated the altercation, leading the local prosecutor to
decline pressing charges against the union member.
And people like Sam Cedar at the Majority Report and Cenk at The
Young Turks really did celebrate this moment and kind of blew it
up. Like, I think I think that
beyond the, you know, the clips airing on Fox News, it was
really the the new progressive media that really brought the
attention to this moment at the time.
And it was pretty delightful. Let's keep going, Mike.
Tell me about what happens in 2012.
So he does a parody rap song at C pack in a breakout room that
includes AI. Don't know how to describe this
but exactly I mean he. So from my point of view he just
says the N word but it designs it to be like a fake out of
saying the N word right? That's the way it seems to be
designed. But when I hear it, it just
seems like he's gleefully saying the N word so.
Yeah, the the lyrics that you're hearing are.
Yeah, but right now you're high. Ain't you a big hitter?
But I'm back from the dead now, bringing back all my knickers
like the pants. It's a fake out on the inward.
But we'll listen to the clip. I normally would not play a clip
like this with with a racial slur, but Steven insists that
it's not. I'll let the listeners decide.
Yeah, that lands him in a lot of hot water.
Well, you know, what's interesting about that is it has
some laughs. Like there's some laughter
there, but like there is this thing when when I mean, you'll
notice like there is some like weird laughter that happens when
Michael Richards and Kramer like kind of yells the N word.
Because when people when people get feel uncomfortable, they
also laugh, right? Like people just just don't know
what to do. And you're in a setting where
you're supposed to laugh. And I, in those laughs, have
that feel like they have a little bit of a nervous high
pitch like. And it's not very many laughs.
It's just like one lady. I I do have to say this is
probably like the craziest CPAC breakout room I've ever seen.
I've gone to that. I've gone to that conference
like a gazillion times. And most of the time these
breakout panels are like, they'll just put you to sleep.
Yeah. Anyway, Crowder responded to the
controversy in Huffington Post, Which as I mentioned earlier,
was a news publication but also a blogging platform at that
time, so he could have bylined something for Huffington Post
despite being conservative. Mike, do you want to read what
he wrote in Huffington Post? How he defended this stunt at C
PAC. The verse was used to point out
the hyper PC disingenuous liberals today seek for a reason
to be offended under every rock. Then he claims that writers who
pointed out the song had an N word joke in it were engaging in
quote character assassination. So that's the headline about
him, but it doesn't set him back too far because the next year
he's tapped to MC the mainstage at C Pack.
Later that year, in 2013, he wound up getting canned from his
Fox News gig after he went on a podcast and started bitching
about doing business with the network, trying to negotiate
contracts with them and pretty explicitly criticizing Sean
Hannity, who he said let liberal guests on his show just plow
right over him. And from the DMS that Greg
Gutfeld said sent Victoria Burger, you know, is supposedly
with people at the network not really liking him very much,
seemed like that was enough for his Fox News chapter to come to
a close. This is the end of a contract
that he negotiated with the help of Ben Shapiro.
Actually, Ben Shapiro was his entertainment lawyer.
That's how they first met, which is kind of a bizarre little
coincidence, but I would imagine that this was not the advice
that, you know, Ben would have given in terms of negotiating a
contract. It seems like he well, and we'll
talk a little bit later about his techniques in that as well.
He's not great at it. Spoiler.
So that's most of Stevens early life and career that we could
corroborate and and find. Child actor in Canada.
Early stand up comic ends up, you know, kind of flaming out
pretty quick and taking a political bend.
Got PJ Media, Breitbart, Fox News, and then a pretty
unceremonious firing from Fox News.
You know, before we go on to the next era of Steven Crowder's
career, which would end up being sort of the defining one for
him. Just curious if you guys have
any thoughts. I just think that's what you get
for ordering milk at a bar. You know, you get fired, you
lose your career and you go back to the blue sheet.
You're now a YouTube again. I think, I think my primary
thought is not a particularly sophisticated 1 is he doesn't
seem very funny. And it really is a reminder that
if you're a comedian, you don't have the goods.
This type of political stuff is waiting for you there as a fall
back. And it seems like there are a
lot of cases like that. There's even some cases on the
left. And he's just not funny, man.
We're now entering the Louder with Crowder era.
So after Fox News, there's a period in Stevens career that
even after researching and trying to ask around, still
remains pretty unclear to me. There's this span, you know,
between late 2013 and sort of the fall of 2014 where Steven
still uploading YouTube videos. He's pulling some views.
I'm not sure it would have been enough for him to make a living.
He's got these occasional speaking gigs at Republican
clubs and college campuses. But again, I'm pretty murky
about, like, what is happening in this period of his life.
But September 2014, he gets his next break after Fox News.
Tell me about that Byron, because this is where his
flagship show Louder with Crowder would begin.
Yeah, you could call it a break. It is a 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM slot
on a an AM radio station in Ann Arbor, MI called WAAM Wham Talk
1600. I mean, it's the drive time.
It's the drive time slot to be fair, but it is AM radio in
2014. Yeah, so you're right.
I mean, I, I guess the, the owners of the station must have
liked them. He must have charmed someone.
Yeah. This this show, it marks kind of
his return to regular broadcasting.
He is no longer just exclusively a YouTube.
And I should say it was great of you to point out, Jared, that.
I mean, I don't know what he was doing necessarily to financially
sustain himself because he was now married at this point.
And I don't know exactly. Yeah, how he could have been
supporting himself. Maybe he was living with his
father, who knows. But really stiff at the
beginning, these early shows, he's got that kind of novice
novelty radio voice. Really important.
Yeah. All of his, his interviews, what
she somehow landed. What are you talking about?
All right, Mike, I wouldn't. I would never dare say that
about you. I don't like what you're
insinuating about the Posting through It podcast.
When we come back from the break and then you're yeah, fade out
to music. Oh my God, you should hear.
I don't know if you've heard any of the the 1st 30 episodes.
Not only did they go in and out of segments with Weezer tracks
for the most part, big Weezer fan back then, Steven was Foo
Fighters, things like that. But he was also Co hosted by a
guy that worked at Wham, A gentleman named Dan and went by
Fun Dip. His last name is Martin.
And yeah, I've, I've tried several times to get in touch
with Dan in several different ways, some more direct than
others, leaving comments on his really, honestly informative
videos. He's a big Beatles fan.
He loves vintage stereo systems and record players loves playing
the bass clearly fun dip. They called the base man fun dip
Dan, but I reached out to him directly finally for comments
about, you know, getting an interview with him under my my
podcast network e-mail audio wool and he replied, I'm sorry.
I want nothing to do with Crowder, ever, Dan.
Interesting. Yeah, I, I, I didn't want to pry
too much more after that because it sounds very clear that he's
uninterested and that that break was not necessarily a good one
that he was anticipating. He still is a ADJ at that same
radio station, though, playing, playing the hits, doing a great
job. But in addition to radio, the
Louder with Crowder show very quickly pivoted to video and it
was uploaded to Stevens YouTube channel.
And you know, it was 2014. This is very ahead of ahead of
time. You know, not many shows were
doing YouTube that way or at least even recycling content the
way he was. He would do, you know, his
normal time slots on the AM station and then he would, you
know, do additional time live streaming.
But he had this kind of segmented, you know, this is the
the uncensored post show on some sort of streaming platform.
But again, yeah, you've really have to give it to him for that
kind of, you know, ahead of ahead of the curve.
Very quick to embrace technology.
You mentioned Dan AKA Fun Dip Martin not being interested in
talking to you. His producer at the time was a
guy named Jared Monroe. He'll come up later in this
episode. He goes by not gay Jared in the
Crowder universe. He's doing his own media
adjacent company now, similar to Dan's response.
I've reached out to his company and was like, hey, can I, can I
talk to Jared Monroe about Steven Crowder?
And I got a similar response from that spokesperson saying,
you know, Jared Monroe is not interested in any opportunity
like this. So it seems the people that have
overlap with Steven Crowder really want nothing to do with
him, seem to not even want to be associated with him anymore.
Well, Jared's Jared situation is a little bit more unique and I
think we'll we'll talk a little bit about that later on in the
episode. But he was also kind of, you
know, he got in between Dan and Steven when Jared showed up.
It there's a little bit of conflict and you know, Dan was
very quickly removed from the show.
But all the best to Dan and very interesting that Jared's new
media company, which I I think they have something to do with
the comedy world. I don't know how deep you went
into that, but. Not not too deep, right It's
this episode about Steven Crowder, not Jared Monroe,
right? But I just want to note his
radio show those like early clips, a big theme and it's it's
almost a callback to his earlier uploads on YouTube is the anti
Islam stuff. He is doing these stunts and
gags about it. 1 he parodies Bob Ross painting the Prophet
Muhammad. He does that one twice actually,
because he did he does it once in 2016 and then the next year
in 2017 he does it again. Except Bob Ross is said to be
painting with period blood. So really side crack and stuff
here. Honestly, just really a funny
guy. And you know, the reason that
every week my job is just so enjoyable.
Like I'm just blessed to have this opportunity to talk about
Steven every week. This this radio show, though, it
eventually becomes his podcast. You know Louder with Crowder
makes Steven, you know, bigger than he ever has been.
The the the show, once it pivots to video and and leaves for
YouTube, it's a roaring success. It not only goes to like a video
format, it also at some point around here circa 2016 was hard
to nail down an exact date. Goes from being a weekly show to
a daily one and you get what would become known as the Mug
Club. Byron, could you explain Steven
Crowder's Mug Club? Because it doesn't exist
anymore, right? But this was like a big, this
was a big thing with his show. Yeah, it was a big thing.
It's a it's a point of pride for the listeners of the Ladder with
Crowder show. It's a physical display of their
support because at that point, around 2016, when Steven went
independent and left the radio station, I guess briefly before
he got some backing elsewhere, he had this idea to fund his
operation by selling memberships that involved, I guess there
were annual memberships. And of course he always provides
promos and discount discounts for active military and law
enforcement. But you for having annually
sponsored his show, would receive a mug.
And this is a hand etched Made in the United States mug that
people can drink beverages out of what they watch this program.
But the evolution of that, I'm not sure what we can get into
that later. But things change things, you
know, As times change and the property moves hands, you know
the mugs might fall to the wayside.
Do you have a mug? I mean, this is a shrug club
mug. It's, it's a louder, louder than
Crowder mug. So we we have, we have our own
mugs. Yeah.
That's like me and Mike talking about music where I'll be like,
yo Mike, you got to check out this like new Rat Boys album.
And he's just like, dude, no, fuck that.
Check out this limited edition 1993 CDI got in downtown New
York, Manhattan. There was a little shop over
there I go. It was fucking awesome.
It was amazing. I saw shows there.
This is awe Techer. You ever heard Awe Techer Jerry?
This is. When I bought the CD, people
didn't know this shit. People know this shit.
They got wise to this shit. They got they got wise to.
I should note also mugs are a bit of a subculture among guys
like this. The Scott Adams show talk show
was like very mug centric, right?
It was just. Do the morning sip or whatever.
I know that because I don't want to get us sidetracked here
because but there is a very we should talk about it briefly on
premium Jared, but there's like there is now like an AI
generated version of the Scott Adams show that is running every
day to an audience of people who have brain matter leaking out of
their ear. It's.
Kind of a cult. And it's to every every episode.
Like we'll start with hope. Here's my mug.
Time for a little quaint cup of coffee.
And he the the dead. Scott Adams goes and drinks the
coffee. Anyway, get carry on.
Anyway, you talked about the show getting some new back in
2017. Mark Levin's conservative review
TVAKACRTV inks a deal with Steven Crowder to air louder
with Crowder on its video streaming platform.
And when CRTV merged with the Blaze TV, which was Glenn Beck's
competitor in 2018, Crowder's contract carried over.
That would be sort of his main hub of operation all the way
until he departed in December 2022.
More on that in a minute. But throughout this time, you
know, he's doing The Daily Show behind a paywall, but he's still
uploading clips and hits and and sorts of things to YouTube.
And I, I want to go through some of that.
He's uploaded so much stuff. We can't cover all of it, but
we're going to try to play out some of his bigger hits or his
bigger sort of moments of notoriety.
Because this period here when he's at CRTV and The Blaze, when
I'm looking back on it, I consider this like the height of
Steven Crowder's career. Which is really interesting,
right? Like the fact that he arguably
was the biggest he's ever been while behind a paywall, Like,
and, you know, the fact that Blaze was unable to, you know,
find a contract that was worthy of him at that point.
Like it's really interesting. 2017 in September, he went quote
UN quote, undercover with Antifa.
So this was after the Unite the Right protest I guess.
So this was, this was like a very big genre that was
ultimately seized by Andy, No. That's true, but Andy no has the
0 less charm than Steven Crowder somehow.
Yeah, yeah. This was like, you know, the
kick off of this, every right wing influencer after Unite the
Right when the country was sitting around being like, holy
shit. So like Nazis, Nazis support
this. It it was an effort to recast
the real threat as the people who protested against the Nazis,
not the Nazis. So Crowder hops on this and
we'll see you throughout the rest of this episode.
He is a a big bandwagon hopper. But tell me a little bit about
this video. And he gets some notoriety for
it, right? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, he did basically. I think it was in response to a
handful of conservative folks being boycotted.
This, this, you know, there was the, the, was it a Milo at
Berkeley that got protested by quote UN quote Antifa?
Correct. And there there were, there were
fires at that. And we covered it actually on
the on The Who the hell is Bill Maher?
Because Bill Maher kind of had him on and let him do a little
star turn to show to show about how, oh, look at how many people
are are upset about free speech. And, and this was a similar
response to a Ben Shapiro speech that was happening in Utah.
And Steven, this is so interesting.
He the video that he posted got so much coverage that actually
Joe Rogan booked him and not Gay Jared to be on Joe Rogan's
experience. The Joe Rogan Experience, Yeah.
I like Joe Rogans experience. Undercover with the Antifa and
that fucking that one was disturbing to me because first
of all, you look like you slide. Right in like a.
Glove buddy like. I was almost matching the guy
when I got there. Guy, gal, we don't know.
And I thought our costume wardrobe lady had actually just
just stolen his clothes because it was almost identical.
Yeah. To what he was wearing.
Isn't it funny? Though that when you're a
slender man like people assume immediately.
So many things. Oh yeah, I can get away with so
much crap. Isn't that weird?
Yeah, well, like, what is it about slender people?
There's something there, right? Like what is it about slender
people that are almost always left wing?
Weakness. Well, just you fucking throwing
his producer right under the bus there.
Weakness. I mean, this is a character that
he and he, you know, called not gay Jared as an insult, so
implying that he was gay. Yeah, also hilarious to me that
you have to employ like a wardrobe person to put you in
like a hoodie and a bandana. He.
I also like, I like, like the brain cells in Rogan's head kind
of screened together to form a little Ferris wheel that
provided him slowly provided him with that analysis where it was
just like, oh, yes, they're slender.
You can get away slender people. The, the whole, the whole video,
lots of issues with this. It's edited in a like surprise,
surprise, deceptive way that makes the context kind of even
hard to understand. In the Joe Rogan episode, Steven
says that there were no arrests based on the coverage that they
did, but the FBI talked to them and some of the people they
talked to were arrested later for doing other things.
So he kind of, in this roundabout way, takes credit
for, you know, having stopped an antifa attack, but he didn't
directly do anything. University of Utah police
evaluated his footage and as well, and they determined that
the individuals didn't pose A credible threat that warranted
action. So.
What a surprise. Yeah, maybe I need to come up
with an elaborate lie to get on Joe Rogan.
That would be kind of fun. But his, I guess his popularity
was about to really start peaking, right?
Yeah, yeah. So around 2018, I couldn't nail
down an exact day for when he did the first one of these.
He starts doing Change My Mind speaking stunts on college
campuses and and out in public. That's how I know him, by the
way, just to be clear. I was like, you know, I think
many of the people in the audience will know that, too.
Yeah, you've undoubtedly seen this as a meme format.
Steven Crowder with one of his little mugs sitting at a table
and there's a sign on the front that says, like, guns Rock,
change my mind and invites people to, invites people to
debate and then clips up those debates and uploads them on to
YouTube or his, you know, various platforms.
Yeah, the, the whole idea of change my mind.
I don't know exactly where he talked about this, but he claims
it was an idea that Fox turned down.
He says this is a way to kind of, you know, I guess, repair
the feelings that he has about having been fired.
From there he got one over on them.
He also said that this was originally a book idea.
I don't know how it would have been a successful book, but.
Just reading the pages of a book screaming.
I guess so, yeah. You know, his his extremely
researched debates, he he shows up with these binders of
information on the topics that he has very selective of course.
But he has these quote UN quote debates with random unprepared
college students on subjects like abortion is immoral or male
privilege is a myth or affirmative action is racist,
things like that. And there was something about
the algorithm at YouTube at this time that really made this, you
know, flourish. It was a extremely popular
little moments for conservative media.
And as I said at the top, this is how I was introduced to
Steven. And, you know, he was somewhat
convincing to me and, you know, sure, a dumb me at the time who
was, you know, learning about politics really.
And sadly, yeah, I guess if I would have if I would have been
a different person, if I'm honest.
But yeah, it's it's it's no surprise that this format really
took off and was influential. But this is Pete Crowder.
Changed my mind. You know, how influential was
this in the whole setup on on Charlie Kirk?
Because it kind of looks aesthetically very similar to
the, the, the type of setup that Charlie Kirk used to have.
And I, you know, looking at the kind of overlap of that, I'm not
entirely sure. It seems that they're both doing
it at the same time, but that but certainly the Steven Crowder
one at that moment was more famous than Charlie Kirk's.
I think Steven Crowder did do it first.
I I was actually on another Joe Rogan Experience episode from
last week or earlier this week with Andrew Wilson, the blood
sports debater. I can't remember what his his
weird, dumb show is, but he mentions at the top, actually,
that Steven Crowder claims to have felt guilty for having
given Charlie the idea that eventually would be, you know,
putting him in a situation where he lost his life.
So whether or not that's true that, you know, Steven did that
before Charlie, I think it is true, but I don't know.
And I wouldn't give him full credit for having, you know,
come up with the idea of having conversations with college
students behind a plastic table. Yeah, Yeah.
I mean, conflict gets clicks, right?
And I think this was like a way of saying, of proving out this
idea of like, OK, you can go give a speech on a college
campus, maybe people will protest you.
But if they don't, or if you're in an area where that's pretty
unlikely, like down in Texas or I don't know, like in North
Carolina or something, you can still get that conflict by
debating college students, which I've always thought was just
really, I've always been put off by it, right?
Because it's punching down. You're taking somebody who's
like professionally trained, has talking points ready to go and
pitting them against just some like random undergrad who is
still trying to figure out who they are as a person, let alone
like what they think about the world.
So it's I think they figured out it's like we can get conflict
content where we almost always win the argument or at least
appear to win the argument. You know, Charlie Kirk did a
version of change My Mind. But also, you know, generally
this period also gives rise to like all kinds of Internet
debate content, all kinds of just like man on the street
protest stuff. It's just really start to
explode around this time. And the way that Steven did it
is different as well than than the way Charlie did it.
Steven does it as a surprise. Charlie at least planned his
events and people would show up prepared to debate.
They wouldn't be students, you know, between classes.
And I think one of the last one of the last change my minds
before he decided to take advantage of the death of
Charlie Kirk by bringing them back and also making really sick
edits where he's putting on a bulletproof vest and getting out
of a van to do this. The most recent change my minds,
Steven Monticelli, the journalist from Dallas, I don't
know if you're familiar with him, does great work.
He sat down with Steven and debated him.
And that was kind of the death of change my mind for Steven
was, oh, now I'm talking to someone who actually knows, no
offense to the to the youths who are debating Steven, but knows
what they're talking about. So that really changed the way
Steven approached, changed my mind, at least for a couple
years. So Stevens also been at the
forefront of battling with social media platforms over
alleged censorship, alleged shadow banning.
He on several occasions has filed lawsuits, none of which
went anywhere. But where he really made
headlines for this was in 20/19, he went to war with a Fox News
reporter named Carlos Maza. And this is where I'm going to
put a disclaimer that when I worked at Media Matters at the
start of my professional career, I overlapped with Carlos a
little bit. We never worked together really
closely on anything. But just throwing that out
there. So this was back when platforms
were still sort of pretending to care about community guidelines.
You know, it's post 2016 election.
It's post Unite the Right platforms are feeling pressure
from legislators, that sort of thing to take content moderation
seriously. And Carlos Manza had published a
video at Fox criticizing YouTube for not enforcing its, you know,
pretty clearly stated community guidelines against bullying,
against hate, against this and that when it came to high
profile content creators on the platform.
That piece prompted a kind of reaction from YouTube, right,
where channels were getting demonetized, some channels were
getting banned or earning suspensions.
Steven Crowder is weighing in on this, and he catches heat for
how he repeatedly disparaged Carlos Masa, who is openly gay
and Latino. Crowder defended it as harmless
ribbing and quote UN quote playful comedy.
Here's just like a a super cut of a couple of those.
Favorite and list piece right from boxes.
It's ridiculous. It's bonkers.
You're being given a free pass as a crappy writer because
you're gay. That setter line on his little
queer graph there? What is what is that is queer
violence, Phil. OK, so the little queer can eat
his chips all nonchalantly. It's code for rape.
Mr. Queer Eating Chips on the Vox channel.
So just gross. Yeah, you seem to have a little
bit too much fun doing his gay voice.
I just want to. I just want to put a little pin
in that. It's also worth noting at the
time, Steven Crowder was also selling merchandise for his show
that featured homophobic slurs. So YouTube initially in this
sort of standoff with Carlos Manza, sides with Steven
Crowder. And this angers a lot of
employees at YouTube who make their anger about this really
known inside the company. Soon after they reverse course
and they demonetize Steven Crowder's channel.
Years later they'd re monetize it saying that Steven had
learned how to be a good boy. But that is like wavered on and
off with different bits of content offensive shit that
Steven Crowder's put out. Steven continued to battle with
YouTube throughout the years. The platform would give him a
community guideline strike. Here for election genialism.
Another one here for mocking police killings of black people.
One here for harassment and bullying.
But YouTube has a three strikes rule.
So he would get like suspended for a week.
He gets suspended, you know, for a couple of weeks.
He'd lose ad revenue for a little bit and get it back.
But he never got enough strikes sequentially to get banned from
the platform. His channel still sits there
today. It was very strategic how he
would do this too. He would like the week that his
second strike expired. He would manufacture a new
situation in which he could get attention by receiving one more
strike and being removed off of YouTube for a week and then come
back with his big oh I'm being censored episode.
So honestly kind of smart. Also a way to direct people to
the paywall. So November 2019, he reenacts
the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein. Everybody take a shot because
it's the Jeffrey Epstein has been mentioned in In a recent
episode, he tries to debunk reports that Epstein hung
himself inside his prison cell wearing a neck brace and an evil
Knievel costume. Steven did not die from this
Everyone so. Steven, don't.
Worry, don't get sad. I'm trying to imagine a
situation where he like accidentally hangs himself on
his podcast. I mean.
We're doing a bit. I mean.
Wouldn't be surprised, you know, we may live to see an instance
in which some some idiot that we covered does a bit and then dies
from it. Surprised it hasn't happened
yet. I was going to say it.
Probably has, we're just not remembering it.
I mean, I, we recently covered, you know, following the, the
murder of Renee Goode, he decided to do a reenactment
similar to this in the parking lot in which he stood in front
of an employee's car and pointed a small gun at one of them who
was in the driver's seat. So kind of a.
Pointed a gun at one of his employees.
Yeah, Jesus, what a. It was a small gun, Jared.
It was not one of his biggest guns, but yeah, he did decide to
try to prove that Renee Goode deserve to get shot 3 times and
killed. Yeah, yeah.
So 2020 comes around. Steven Crowder's still gung ho.
I mentioned earlier he's a bandwagoner, and there's a whole
lot of bandwagons to jump on this year.
You've got COVID, you've got the Black Lives Matter protest,
you've got the election. Of course, Byron, how do you
understand like what Stevens role was in that sort of
ecosystem? Because like we said, this is
the height of Stevens career, right?
But as we mentioned a second ago, it was also the height of
YouTube's managing how they censor things.
So dancing inside of COVID and BLM and election denial because
all of those things, you know, talking poorly about COVID
regulations, which he did frequently.
I should also mention he decided to go to two shows a day instead
of one a day during COVID in which he, you know, made all of
his employees come to the office and they didn't have any masks.
So that was pretty cool to put more people in danger more
often. And you know, 2020 election
denial. He would spearhead these
campaigns trying to point out, you know, election address
irregular irregularities you would like go.
I think he sent some of his employees to Arizona, New
Mexico. I'm not exactly sure to look at
where some unhoused people had been placing their address and
it was like like 3 people had an address that was like a vacant
lot or something. But he makes huge deals out of
this. And of course, the BLM stuff,
that's all violent riots. So it was just a, it was mess,
it was a mess, It sucked, it was terrible.
And, you know, every chance he got, he would use these culture
war topics to not only make his audience grow, but also make
himself a victim of censorship. Which brings us to an awful
thing that he decided to cover and focus quite a bit on.
We talked about the Stievel Knievel reenactments and the
Jeff. Did we talk about Jeff?
Yeah, we sure did. He re enacted the the police
murder of George Floyd in April of 2021.
During Derek Chauvin's trial, he claimed to prove that kneeling
couldn't kill anyone of, quote, moderate health.
He was. Doing a a science experiment.
He loves science experiments. He loves just like, just like
Point McDonald. Kneel on someone's neck to with
to prove, which is the big talking point from the racist
right in particular that let me see if I've got this correctly,
that George Floyd had a level of toxicity in his system from
drugs that needed that and that's ultimately what killed
him. And then this was somehow normal
police. Police work, like kneeling on
this man's neck for 9 minutes and the better part of 10
minutes really. Yeah, yeah.
So he has his employee dress up as like a Reno 911 style cop and
kneel on his neck for 9 minutes. And him and Co host Dave Landau
conversed and said how you doing?
He's like, I'm doing fine. He's just face down in his
parking lots. You know, clearly, Yeah,
clearly. This was exactly the same
elements and you know that that went into the murder of George
Floyd, so. Yeah, I watched, I watched this
video. I mean, to call this a
reenactment, it feels like a real stretch.
You can tell his employees are like not putting their full
weight on their legs. They're leaning on their thighs.
Yeah, elbows on thighs. They're like repositioning at
several points because, like Stevens uncomfortable and you
know, and but then the take away is that well, George Floyd died
because he was a drug addict, right, which was like you
mentioned, Mike, the racist talking point from the radical
right. It's just a clearly racist
experiment, and those don't happen live on comedy shows.
But it's also I think I think we I have to, I have to just, you
know, declare here that it is not it's not an experiment when
you go out to prove your propaganda, right?
You're not like scientific inquiry.
What is it? Let me see.
No, I mean, the reality is he's trying, he's trying to provide
fodder for people who think that George Floyd had not been killed
by the police officer by the drugs, right?
I mean, that's that that's the reason to stage it.
It's not anyway. But that goes out without
saying. Maybe.
But I think we should under score that well, in November
2021, this really wonderful guy who has in a very strong
opinions about George Floyd uses the the N word.
I would like when when it's uses the N word, like it's a like
it's a fucking screwdriver or something.
Yeah, he says it. He says the N word.
We've already heard him almost say it.
Now he's actually saying it. And yeah, no, needs to play a
clip of that. I think you got a pretty good
idea what type of person this is.
Everybody knows what that word is and what it sounds like.
We're going to skip that clip. He's the great value version of
like a real political commentator.
Like he he's generic. And the only thing that he's
been doing recently is, you know, being escalatory, you
know, because he's running into walls with the way that, you
know, the content that he's sharing is now.
It's milquetoast at this point. You have to be inflammatory.
And I think that that is what he's more skilled at than, you
know, providing actual personal opinions on politics.
I don't think he has much of that.
Yeah, I, I mean, before we get into the part of Stephen's story
where shit's about to hit the fan from a lot of different
directions, I, I wanted to get your thoughts, Byron, because
certainly, like what you just said, Stephen knows how to be
inflammatory. He knows how to get attention
for himself, whether it's through these stupid stunts,
being deliberately offensive, whatever it may be.
But you know from your time watching Louder with Crowder,
not to be confused with the excellent Louder Than Crowder
podcast, you know, once he gets people's attention and has them
with him, you know their curiosity is piqued.
They're interested, whatever they're here, they're there to
check them out. Is there anything that stands
out to you as maybe why, like that would explain how he ended
up being so successful converting those people into
like die hard audiences? Because it's, it's one thing to
like, you know, TuneIn to the posting through a podcast
because you want to learn about Steven Crowder and who the hell
that guy is. It's another thing to be like,
wow, I really love these guys. I'm going to sign up for the
Patreon and like binge the episodes and stuff.
Like, that's somebody who, like, really likes the show, right?
Which I do, and I do Patreon. Yeah, go check that out, guys.
Oh, sign up. Everyone on the Patreon show can
shout out Byron, but but yeah, how how does Steven do it?
I mean, what's? That's the big question.
I don't know if I'm being honest 1 I don't think his metrics are
real. I think that looking at like his
early really influenced that might be more attributed to luck
and timing than anything else. But I, I don't know why people
tune into his show beyond them clearly having hateful beliefs.
Because the program itself, like as a commentary show, it's
looking at news and giving opinions that are, maybe This is
why it works. It's giving like gut opinions
that are coming from a really, really dark place.
And I think that often it's those instinctual hateful
beliefs and someone just saying it plainly and flatly and
bluntly, that's that's really magnetic to someone like that
because they don't have to do it themselves.
It's an ID program, you know, it's not smart, it's not funny,
and you don't have to think too much about it.
And I think that that's what's drawing people in.
Are you taking notes, Mike? You guys got to be Dumber I.
I I'm going to reserve some of my thoughts about this for my my
final take. All right, well, shit's about to
hit the fan. So it's January 2023.
Steven Crowder has left Blaze TV at this point, but we learned in
January 2023 that he had projected an offer from the
Daily Wire. The way we learn about that is
because he starts a spat with the Daily Wire.
The offer is insane, as we come to learn about it.
The Daily Wire, which is the outlet that has, you know, Matt
Walsh and Ben Shapiro and Andrew Clavin and those guys.
Candace for a bit. Yeah.
Candace Owens for a bit, too. They offered Steven Crowder $50
million over the course of four years, with the potential to
extend that an additional 2 years at the same rate.
I want to under score that. That is how much you know
billionaire slush money runs around in the right wing spaces
as as opposed to our world. Yeah, I'd also like to add that
they also offered him a, a, a speaking role in the Pendragon
cycle, Rise of the Merlin as part of this detail as deal as
well. Dude, that's on my much must
watch list, but I just can't bring myself to swipe the credit
card on the Daily Wire. So there's $75 million
potentially on the table here. And what do they want from
Steven? Host a podcast 4 times a week
and do it with full editorial control.
But there was a catch. And this is what Steven Crowder
would take issue with the Daily Wire about, which was that if
Steven lost advertisers or he got demonetized or banned from
major platforms, his pay would get docked in some cases by
double digit percentages. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
You're telling me that this, this company, if I don't make
them any money, they don't want to pay me money?
This is weird. Yeah, it's crazy.
It's crazy. If I if I'm hired to produce a
show and then that show gets banned and removed from its
distribution platform, they're not.
I just don't make money now. You guys are evil people.
So, yeah, the the demonetization clause was really contentious.
It was something Steven focused on because of course, he had
been demonetized by YouTube three years prior.
That's something there's a big difference between
demonetization and being actually blocked from the
platform. So he hadn't been making money
on YouTube for years. But yeah, this meant under the
contract written the terms as written, that he would start by
only making 75% of that. So the deal would be 430 thirty
$7.5 million instead of 50 from day one.
Oh well, in that point, count me out, dude. 37.5 Get.
Get out of here. Honestly it's I'm feel like I'm
being exploited and ripped off just looking at this.
So Jeremy Boring claimed that this would have been scratched
out in negotiations in a response video to Stevens
concerns. But Steven viewed the fact that
it was included at all as either incompetence or bad faith.
Yeah, I remember him talking about.
It is like this is proof that conservative ink or, you know,
big, big right wing media is in bed with tech companies and
they're not really about free speech like they say they are
because they won't guarantee him in writing off the bat an
additional $12.5 million is this argument.
Well, he deserves an additional 3 to $4 million a year.
You. Know my thought about this is he
doesn't seem like a guy who believes in much.
Why not just take it, get whatever of that money you can
until your thing does get thrown off or just make the water down
the show as much as possible. Don't use the N word anywhere
and just ride it out. A lot of these clowns, these
Mark Levin, all these type of guys, they, they're able to be
racist pieces of dog shit everyday without getting to
platform. Figure out a way and get your
$50 million. Mike, that requires skill.
He's not a skilled broadcast. Take your vacations to Tokyo and
take it, you know, and, and, and, and have your, your
champagne by the beach and do your, I mean, what I mean, $50
million maybe, I mean, maybe he's, maybe he's an artist and
he could not be compromised. You know, in a worst case
scenario though, where Steven lost all of his advertisers and
got banned from all major platforms, his salary would have
effectively been $0.00 and the Daily Wire would retain the
rights to his content and all his very cool merch, as well as
his e-mail list. All those mugs did Steven's like
don't fuck it, don't tread on my mugs.
Have either of you ever like come across like right wing
merch like this in the wild? Just like seen it like at the
airport some fucking guys wearing a shirt or something.
I. Don't know the airport I think
is the only place I've encountered it.
Mate the airport or like it would have to be if I go down to
the loop in Chicago for some reason occasionally there will
be like a tourist wearing like a MAGA hat or something but.
I'm not talking about MAGA hats because that's like, that's just
like you're walking out of the street.
You're like, I'm a fucking asshole.
Like, you know, there were there were a few guys that I would see
like right after Trump won in New York City wearing them.
And it's like you're just, you're just asking me to like,
you know, whack them in the fucking back of the head and
knock it off onto the into the fucking drain.
But. That's don't say that that's one
of Stevens biggest fears is the knockout game.
No, but I'm not like, you know, I'm not going to be careful.
I'm not. I'm not going to do that because
I'm a law abiding citizen, clearly who's listening to this?
I'm talking about like merch. I'm talking about like some
fucking dipshit in like a Nick Fuentes quarter zip or whatever.
Like you just never see people wearing these things like it
around. And maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe they maybe they get it and then they realize, actually I
could get my ass beaten very severely today if I wore this.
I should just wear it in the house while I'm listening to my
garbage. I don't know.
Being based in Montana and just a couple hours away from
northern Idaho, sometimes I do stumble upon folks like this.
I'm lucky enough to be in a very liberal tiny little dot college
town, so things are good and safe and fun for me here.
But yeah, it doesn't take, doesn't take far.
I I will not delay us any further back to Crowder.
Back to Crowder. So he's freaking ticked off that
he is given this bullshit contract from the Daily Wire.
It's offensive. And he's also, I think a little
sore because when he left the Blaze when that contract wasn't
renewed, they kept all of the e-mail lists for his mug
clubbers, which was something like 300,000 people.
And that really upset him that he didn't have rights.
They also kept his archives as far as I could tell.
It's all behind the pay wall if. You want to go watch old Louder
with Crowder episodes? You still have to give money to
Glenn Beck. Yeah, we've never covered the
Blaze era on our show because it is behind the pay wall,
unfortunately. But it is like, like we said,
like the most popular time in his career.
So that must be kind of a bummer.
But this is This is why Steven called this Daily Wire contract
a slave contract in theory. The.
Slave being a fucking slave. Podcasting.
I'm sorry, what? Yeah, Chain behind this desk
talking to a camera. Oh, no.
He was thinking that the Daily Wire would be making bank off of
his show and that he would get nothing.
What did he want? He wanted $30 million a year.
Wanted $120 million over the course of four years, not fifty
$120 million. And this is according to Ben
Shapiro and Jeremy Boring. The Daily Wire accused him of
setting up an online fight to boost himself, which I I was
monitoring this as well. I'm so glad that me and my good
friend Ben Shapiro also caught the same details.
We did The Who is the the old who is on stopbigcon.com, which
is the new phrase that he developed.
He wants to stop big con large conservative On December 12th of
2022, Steven Crowder registered the domain.
On December 15th, he announced his departure from the blaze and
asked people to join mug club and then went on his winter
break. And then when he came back on
sometime in January, he secretly recorded Jeremy boring in a date
Daily Wire contract negotiation and released this leaked
conversation and kicked off his stop Big Con campaign, which is
him going against other conservatives is something that
he's been increasingly willing to do, which is quite
interesting. He loves to cannibalize and, you
know, splinter apart these these audiences and, you know, scoop
up as much of it as he can. But I got to say, this is not a
good look for him. I don't think that this turned
out to be 1, the right choice to turn down a lot of money and
security or, you know, to like people don't, I don't know, I
guess look at how the Daily Wire is doing now.
You know, they're also struggling.
So I don't really know who wins here.
But I do know that it was a really public and kind of
obnoxious little infighting moment that I think he, I think
he was the biggest loser of. Yeah, I mean, also notable about
this spat is that it draws Stephen a lot of criticism from
other conservative media personalities who finds the
whole thing in poor taste, right.
It's like somebody walks up to you, wants to give you 50
million fucking dollars and then you try to ridicule them or you
try to suggest that they're in the pocket of like tech
companies or something, and you air it out all publicly and and
like you force that outlet to respond to you.
It's just this attention money grabbing stunt.
A lot of people in that media space, you know, we know from
things we covered earlier in the episode, he's not an especially
popular guy. But like this, this burns some
bridges for him, I think. It's a true Sophie's Choice,
really. So a couple months later, in
March 2023, Steven Crowder signs a contract with Rumble, an
alternative video platform that's got investments from JD
Vance and Peter Thiel, in addition to a host of other sort
of reactionary investors. Right?
This was going to be the new YouTube.
And of all the alternative platforms out there, this one
has, you know, it has probably been one of the most lasting
successes, at least on paper, right?
This company is making a shit load of money.
It's not clear how much money they give Steven Crowder, but,
you know, I mean, this is where he goes after declining 50
million bucks. So I have to wonder because the
company, as far as I could tell, hasn't disclosed how much he's
making off this contract. But they did put out a press
release saying that within the first five months of Steven
Crowder launching his show doing his Daily Show with Rumble, the
show generated over $7.5 million in subscription payments to the
Mug Club. He claims he had the most
watched stream. On election night in 2024 via
Rumble. Claims that, claims that he also
had an election integrity map that he had in place to catch
shenanigans in real time that broke within 7 minutes.
Something like that didn't work the entire night.
I mean, it's pretty cool stuff. So in April 2023, I was
acquainted with Steven Crowder in a more intimate way as
someone who didn't follow him too closely before then because
I saw footage, ring footage of him appearing to berate his
pregnant wife. So it was Yasher Ali.
Big big fan of that guy. What a weird character he is.
Published his Ring footage of him doing that.
Hilary Crowder. Apparently that's the wife
leaked that to Yasher. Allegedly this was recorded two
years earlier in June of 2021. In the video she's pregnant,
she's carrying twins and he unloads on her using for over
using her car. Yeah, they share a car.
You got to? Yeah.
They have one car, Mike. Thank you.
We got one car. He unloads her for using the
car, the family car, because he wants to go to the gym and the
audio on this is not pleasant. So I think trigger warnings
there for misogyny and threats of domestic violence, Jim.
I can go to my parents, I can't call my friends.
I can't go. I can't.
Be home. You're gonna take the car and
leave me here, Hillary. Just think of how boxing is made
me. What do you need me to?
Pick up. I'll get it.
I'll be back when I'm back. No, that doesn't work either.
You'll be back when you're back. It doesn't work.
Either I I understand the difference between one life.
Being set to the second and you're going.
Back on back, the student. The only way out of this is
discipline. Respect.
We're at an. Impact good.
Because you can't have any. There you go.
You throw your hand, you give up.
So I just said the only way this is discipline of respect.
You said that we're at an impact.
No, we are. At an impact.
OK, I love you. But.
Steven. Steven.
Here, he's sick. Watch it, watch it, fucking
watch it. I'm going to let go.
I'll get what you need me to get it and I I need.
Some space we need you to stop and Beijing for.
A little bit. OK, I.
Love you, I love you very. Much I don't love you, that's
the big problem. I've never received love from
you. And the fact is, when I go look,
I need an ABC and D, You just can just put about it, you know?
No, but I love you more than life itself, OK?
It's not fair. It's not fair and it's
disingenuous. I'm just going to stop it there.
I think folks get the picture. Jared, it's been a while since
I've heard that and still just so upsetting.
Just makes me so fucking mad hearing it every single time.
I can't imagine to talking talking to anybody like that,
let alone somebody I love who's. A correction though, he says he
doesn't love her. No, he doesn't love at.
Least he's at least he's honest about that.
So to paint paint an even richer picture, Hillary was 8 months
pregnant with twins and Steven was sitting in on patio
furniture in his backyard blowing cigar smoke towards
Hillary. And that little comments about
putting on some gloves. That was because she was
complaining. Complaining, she said that she
didn't want to. It had something to do with
picking up dog poop or applying A Suppository into a sick dog of
theirs that would have caused problems for her pregnancy.
The medication would have. So he's mad that she didn't want
to do that. Yeah.
Couldn't go get the, you know, the Traeger wood pellets for his
his grill. What if him and his friends
wanted to go to the gym that she couldn't take the car?
So this is the. Equivalent.
So I don't know much about the dog medicine, but pregnant women
aren't allowed to clean the litter box usually because,
Yeah, because there's like bacteria, whatever this is.
Like instead of just doing, doing the little bit of extra
house chores during that time, it's like, it's like, it's like,
figure it out, Figure it out, woman.
Well, and and you did stop at Jared before he threatens her
saying I will fuck you up, which is a really foul that I he's
verbally abusing his wife on ring Cam.
We don't have the full context of it, but I feel it's safe to
say that that's that's what we got.
He filed for divorce, I guess, hired a divorce attorney in
January of 2021, five months before this footage was
recorded. Hillary didn't have any idea
that he'd hired a lawyer yet. He he was planning to leave, but
then was, you know, maintaining this traditional marriage brand,
which was a struggle for him to kind of square.
Then Hillary eventually filed for divorce December 2021,
leaving after learning that he had already hired attorneys.
Steven, she claims, which I think.
I don't know what his excuse was, I'm racking my brain, but
he wasn't present for the birth of their twins.
Jeez, dude. Yeah, really rough stuff.
This footage though, it it it came out two days later after
that divorce was filed by Hillary and Steven announced the
divorce on his show and blamed his bad decisions and felt
really remorseful about the way he treated his wife.
And wait, actually, no, he blamed his wife for the marriage
falling apart. He was publicly in this segment
express expressing how he was against no fault divorce and he
straight up said that this was his biggest failure, saying
quote I made the wrong choice talking about marrying her.
Look, I get it, there are multiple sides to every story.
But one thing that is undeniable in this case, that's no one's
fault but my own, in that I picked wrong, and that's
certainly not the fault of my children.
Shit doesn't stop hitting the fan, though.
Months after that, May 2023, workplace harassment accusations
against Steven Crowder go public.
So there's a handful of investigations published.
The first one that really rocks is from the New York Post.
You know, it has, I think it was like nearly a dozen former
Louder with Crowder staffers on various levels of attribution.
I'm just going to read a quick little blurb from it to kind of
paint the picture. Crowder allegedly sent
production assistants to do his laundry and could be a quote,
unreasonable micromanager who would make wild requests after
hours to quote, set people up for failure.
Ex staffers claimed that he would regularly berate his team
and threatened to fire people on the company's discord channel.
He even went after his own father, Darren Crowder per one
source who claimed Crowder would yell at his dad in front of
employees when Darren was working as his son's Booker.
In addition to this, the stand out allegation against Steven
Crowder is that he on multiple occasions exposed his genitalia
AKA whipped out his Dick in front of staff.
Feel like taking your Dick out is like #1 on the list?
Yeah, you just and it's pretty easy not to do is the cool
thing, right, So. You know, there's like there's
like multiple chances for you to stop before you pull your Dick
out. You think about it and you look
down. You have to what?
You have to like unbutton on zippers.
You've got to pull it down, you've got to whip it out.
I think there's like multiple stops on that train where you
can get off the ride. It's.
Like I like the idea that this, this like 2 second thing being
broken down and it's like, well, it's like, wait a second.
It's like bullet. It's like bullet time in the
matrix. Or it's like, yeah.
No, he responded to these allegations by doing what he
does best, a skit in which he showed his genitalia to a
staffer. Oh.
Comedy, of course. That comedy.
Yeah. It's honestly the show is a who
you guys should check it out. Apparently though, like zooming
in and on one of these specific allegations, he climbed over and
dropped his junk on top of Jared's shoulder.
I think this is while they were in a moving van while they were
preparing or heading to a change my mind event.
Nope, nevermind. Right here in my notes, he Jared
was sleeping on a plane. So that means that it probably
happened more than once in my brain on a plane.
Just pull that out. Apparently he did it to Jared
while he was sleeping on a plane in 2018.
On a on a plane. I mean, I guess, I guess he's
making big money. In theory this could be a
private plane, but now I'm also imagining Steven Crowder doing
this like in Economy on like Delta Airlines flight, whatever,
you know? It's like the.
On a private. It's like the bit that Al
Franken got cancelled for where he sort of like pretended to
the, you know, touch the boobs as a gripping person, which
which of course, this is very controversial now.
It's like, you know, it's been relitigated quite a bit.
What happened with Al Franken but not bringing that up.
But it is that that's sort of like oops, sleeping person.
Maybe I can do something silly here.
It's. Jocular.
It's it's locker room humor. I don't particularly like waking
up with a penis on my shoulder, but it's only happened.
It's only happened about a half dozen times to me.
I have seen him on private jets before.
One of my favorite pictures shows him in a new button up
shirt that still has the lines from where it was folded at the
JC Penney where he got it, which is pretty cool.
He's a sharp dresser. I really think he's got great
fashion sense. But Steven tries to kind of
shake this all off, laugh it away.
That is until he can't really do that any longer when not Gay
Jared decides to sue him and Steven ends up losing that
lawsuit in his order to pay $58,000.
Since then, a handful of staffers have come out even
since the the what you discussed.
Jared Stevens always hiring. You can go to the website and
get a job there pretty easily. Yeah, yeah, when I was looking,
they're hiring a social media manager right now.
Oh Dang, that's a new one. Yeah, I'm always looking for
opportunities, so yeah. Stuff out there, you know,
That'd be a great job for posting through it, Listener.
If I don't want it, because I do know a lot about the show,
Steven, I'm your guy. Just kidding.
Yeah. Listen, there's, there's been a
handful of claims that you, you went by Jared.
He apparently allegedly offered and asked staffers for
prescription drugs like Klonopin and Percocet cannabis gummies,
which I that's fine, I don't care about that.
But he required staff allegedly again to work 100 hours plus a
week and to sleep in the office without overtime pay.
When staff complained about lack of sleep, he responded.
Be a little grateful buddy. He also would buy, I don't know
the exact name of the book, but books about radical
accountability and would give them that when they would mess
up following the coverage of his bad behavior.
The entire company after that New York Post article came out,
the entire company and I think Media Media did some stuff as
well, but the entire company had to sign updated Ndas, which you
know, if the results of Jared Monroe's lawsuit kind of point
that it's just it actually doesn't really matter.
They're not enforceable, or at least they weren't so.
It's always a good place, you know, when you have a ton of
allegations about workplace harassment and unfair labor
practices is to force all your employees to sign really tight
Ndas. That's a that's usually a good
sign that you're in the right and have nothing to hide.
Of course. Well, he starts getting kind of
sloppy after this. I mean, he, he has made a lot of
bad blood in pretty short order. This catches up to him May 2023,
same month, you know, but as all this stuff's coming out, there's
a mass shooting in Allen, TX. Folks might remember this.
It was at like a outside promenade, like a shopping mall
kind of area. And it comes out that the
perpetrator had neo Nazi tattoos and Stevens response and a lot
of the right wing media response at the time was to call it a
psyop because the perpetrators name was Murcio Garcia.
That's not European white name right?
So Steven and other people in right wing media start attacking
and showing photos of a random guy in Texas who happened to
also have that name. They aired photos of him in
their coverage. They claimed that they had to do
this because the mainstream media was refusing to tell the
truth about the story. And according to a letter that
his mother sent one network, not Steven, but a different network
that also aired photos of her son, it turned their life upside
down. They were getting death threats,
they were being harassed and her son was associated with a neo
Nazi mass shooting. A lot of people forget also that
there were like 2 narratives that were kind of going at that
time. The white nationalist group VDR
for example, put out post saying that like this is it, this is a
Hispanic shooter, you know, this is it.
This is this is where the invasion will get you right?
And, you know, surprise, this guy's out of social Russian
social media site sharing quite literally VDR links.
Yeah. And he turned out to be a white
supremacist. So, you know, I think it is
important to frame Crowder's actions in that context, in that
he was sharing this guy's name. But it was also most likely
about the, you know, inspired by the 1st push of that
information, which was the fact that this guy was had a Latino
last name and background and his ideology, his right leaning
ideology became more apparent as time went on actually.
Well, he was inspired kind of by one of his good friends, Alex
Jones, and his mistaken coverage around Sandy Hook.
Which is interesting because Steven and Gerald ended up
getting sued by Mauricio Garcia's family and deposed by
the God attorney, a Mark Bankston hero attorney at large.
Mark did a wonderful job. If you have a couple hours to
spend, YouTube did a great job with providing those depositions
to us and Mark did a wonderful job.
Yeah, so Steven and Gerald Morgan, who's like a producer on
the show, right? Gerald Morgan is the CEO now.
He he became CEO because Steven was using him to shield all his
assets during the during the divorce, Gerald Morgan
technically owned Stevens Lake House because they didn't want
to give Hillary any of it. So pretty cool stuff.
So scummy dude, but also you're the CEO of a podcast, all right
man. I mean, he's a CEO of a podcast
as well as a conversion therapy like pro conversion therapy guy
too. So yeah, he does a lot, chuckles
a lot of different hats. Cool guys.
Wears them too. Anyway, so Steven and Gerald
Morgan, they get deposed. And according to a posting
through a listener who works at the same law firm that handled
this case, shortly after those depositions, Crowder settled the
case. We don't know for how much, but,
you know, I assume that means that Steven Crowder and Gerald
Morgan walked out of those depositions and we're like,
well, fuck, you know what? Let's just cut him a check and
like try to move on from this year.
Basically everything that was happening devastated Steven
Crowder's reputation, and some analysis from Media Matters
shows that Crowder's content has really started to perform quite
poorly on Rumble these days. He's tried to recover, but it
seems like most of those efforts have flopped.
I mean, I gave a look guys on just to see how he was doing on
X. For a guy who has ostensibly the
better part of 3,000,000 followers is 2.5 million
followers. There's a lot he's doing the
kind of engagement that you would expect to see from like a
dirtbag left tweet, you know, like he's cracking, you know,
he's cracking 1000 likes on most of his posts.
And and of course we can't really be sure on X for example,
how many of those are legit or botted up.
Yeah, yeah. And I, and I looked at Social
Blade, which is like a analytics tracking company just for his
YouTube channel to see sort of how, you know, is the channel
still growing? And what I saw is that his
YouTube channel, which I mean, granted, Rumble is his primary
home these days, seems to be shrinking.
Like people are unfollowing or they're deleting their accounts
or whatever it may be. But like his follower count.
Maybe they died of COVID. His follower counts going down
slowly. It's a slow, slow burn, but
going down nonetheless. I always look at these examples
of actual interaction on Stevens social media.
He does occasionally does a call for action.
He does something every I can't remember what month it is, but
he has cultural appropriation month and he has a theme every
week, a very racist theme. And he has his his followers
post dress up like costumed versions of the themes and
interact with him on Twitter. And he gets, listen, I'm telling
you 10 of responses to these, which is really heartening.
One time he spent, I think it was 20, we estimated $20,000 in
a Times Square billboard and told people to go down to Times
Square and take selfies in front of it.
And he got two people to do it. Are we?
Are we titling this? Who the hell is Steven Crowder?
Or who the hell was Steven Crowder?
Oh, that's a good. Question.
He's not dead, Mike. But I mean, people die in
different ways, you know, MF Doom will live forever, you
know? Well, we're not.
We're. Not that's true.
I mean, listen, if we're talking hip hop, I did see feel very old
today when I went to Spotify and saw that it's been 20 years
since J Dilla's Donuts came out. Is that is that your speed Mike?
That sounds like something you. Do I do enjoy that record?
All right, well, Steven, listen, we're not he's not quite quite
done yet because he's actually at this point, August of 2023.
And this is actually the birth of my podcast Louder than
Crowder. I decided to jump in here.
Crowder held a heavily promoted re platforming conference.
So this is a rebirth where he announced that mug Club would
become an umbrella network. This is post Big Con flop and he
is bringing other canceled conservative figures, most
notably Alex Jones, the most censored man in the world,
alongside other band personalities like alleged
sexual assaulter Bryan Callen Stevens, favorite comedian and a
very racist guy, Nick Dipaolo. The Hodge Twins, who I should
point out recently had David Duke on their show.
That's kind of cool. And prematurely introducing anti
vax comedian Jim Breuer from the brew universe folks he was he
was initially announced to be part of the mug club network but
that didn't happen and Jim clarified that on his podcast
pretty soon after St. Steve's a good guy but we we
were never really going to do it.
I think Steven was convinced that Jim was actually going to
be producing a stand up comedy special for him.
And given the special that Steven produced and released for
Bryan Callen recently that came out on YouTube and didn't do
very good numbers. I think Jim dodged a bullet
there. Even for Goat Boy.
You know, he also said that this was his, he was going to use his
platform to help smaller conservative creators.
He pointed towards the slave contract that he was offered at
the Daily Wire, saying that other conservative creators
smaller than him were offered even worse, you know, conditions
and he was going to be the. Opposite of that.
Oh, even even even worse than $50 million.
Right. God, Can you imagine 30 million?
Well, the cool thing is Steven didn't help anyone out.
He didn't he didn't ever bring on any smaller creators to his
network. And in fact, that network mug
Club would eventually be rolled into Rumble Premium.
And Jared, you mentioned, yeah, we we just don't know how much
he's making as part of this deal.
We don't know what kind of cut he's getting as part of Rumble.
I certainly can't imagine he's he's getting Bongino Box right?
Bongino's like a part owner of Rumble.
Yeah, yeah, Bongino's heavily invested in the platform.
I think he has like a 8 or 9% stake is what I saw in some
reporting from a few years ago. But yeah, a lot of right wing
personalities that have been, you know, at battle with tech
companies have tried to do versions of this.
Like one of the first ones I remember was Box Day.
That's a throwback. You know, he had a platform
where he would upload stuff. Gavin Mcinnis, Anthony Cumia, I
mean, Sensor, there's been so many of these and they just like
constantly merge and like one fails and then it gets absorbed
over here and over there. I I don't think it's actually
like a good source of money and it completely isolates your
audience, right? Like, how do you get people to
discover? You have to get people to
discover and pay for a paywall, like to get to the content like
you're you're just not going to reach new people there.
But I also can imagine Rumble, who he has a contract inked with
at this time, has got to be looking at him and being like,
what the fuck are you doing, man?
You're going to start a media network.
Yeah, no, you're not. You're going to tell them to get
on. Rumble is what you're going to
do, Steven. Rumble is a platform baffles me
like you said that they're doing well financially, but how much
money can you make off of ads saying that you can cure your
cavities by drinking apple cider vinegar?
You know, like there? Have you seen the ads on Rumble
other than the ice ones that you get pretty much constantly?
I am so suspicious of that platform.
I also put out some pieces last year at my job at open measures
looking into like what really looked like to me, like bot
activity on Rumble and that that's making up like percentage
points at the very least of what's on the site.
So I don't trust the stats on there either.
It's just very sketchy, very sketchy platform.
For him being the face of what's called the lineup at Rumble,
which is a collection of creators like Tim Poole, it was
Vince who was taking over for Dan Bongino.
But yeah, it's just baffling. He's not even in a featured
creator slot on the main page at Rumble right now.
Lo Fi Girl gets is more featured than Steven Crowder right now.
Well, got one more face plant to recount here before we start to
zoom out, talk about the current day and sort of our reflections
towards the end. Here.
Steven Crowder gets excerpts of writings left behind by Audrey
Hale, who was a mass shooter that in 2023 attacked the
Covenant School outside of Nashville, TN.
Steven has excerpts, right? I mean, like a handful of pages
and he's taking them out onto a show and saying this is proof
that this mass shooter was motivated by anti Christian
sentiment that they were trans, that they were, you know,
basically painting the portrait of this like mentally ill
leftist out to kill right wing children or the children of
Christian conservative people. Police investigate this leak.
Crowder claims that these writings are part of a manifesto
the shooter left behind. And years later, after federal
investigators went through what was a ridiculous amount of
material that shooter left behind, videos, notebooks after
notebooks after notebooks came to an entirely different
conclusion, saying that Audrey Hale wanted to be famous.
They wanted to have notoriety. They openly fantasized about
like true crime documentaries being made about what they did.
You know, that was that was the motivation and that they had no
reason to believe that, like politics really factored into
it. They were a former student at
the school and thought, wow, shooting up kids in a school
that's going to get the headlines, that's going to be
like they're going to Remember Me like Columbine and Stephen.
His response was very lackluster of just like a they say Biden's
in office when this report comes out right.
So it's just like, well, of course the Biden
administration's going to claim this.
They're covering it all up. But it but it's really the way I
see it, just a really embarrassing blowing the lid off
of sort of what Stevens shtick is there?
The final investigation report doesn't name Steven explicitly,
but you know, they're kind of sub tweeting him throughout it.
This wouldn't have been public if if it wasn't for him making
such a mess of it, claiming that this is all just white
Christians are the new victims and this is all just part of
this larger trans panic around mass shooters.
So it's a it was a mess. Yeah, that was part of his what
what we call the MCU, the Mug Club undercover investigation
unit that he has over there. That's what he calls it.
So it's just people emailing and shit him shit right Like.
Yep, that's all it is. And I think it was a similar
connection that he had with an ATF agents post Charlie Kirk
that got him a scoop. The scoop that was again a
misguided representation of of what was said on the shell
casings and what it meant. And he, of course, he went on,
aired the next day talking, talking about that as well,
incorrectly so. So remember this guy in the two
semesters of college he attended, apparently you know,
According to him, took media and journalism class.
Jared, he doesn't know the difference between the first,
second and third hand source is what he said during his his
conversation with Mark Bankston during that deposition.
So awesome. Yeah.
Didn't learn much at media school.
Nope. So this guy is kind of like
slowly rotting, it looks like, you know, as a content creator
before our eyes, you are subjecting yourself to this
stuff. What?
What are you seeing? Like, what?
What? What is he now?
What does he do? Yeah, when I TuneIn daily now
it's you know, it's actually pretty good.
Things have gotten really funny. Mike things have taken a turn.
He's no he's the worst. It's awful.
The show usually starts with he does a cold open where he talks
about the topics he's going to be hitting, does a really funny
and you know, song parody or a commercial for a finance company
that is somehow still racist and they're still somehow still
offering him. I had money for that.
And then we roll into an opening where he usually will play
whatever racist clip is trending on conservative TikTok.
One of his employees will send him something he finds funny.
It's maybe it's a stabbing that someone is committing in France.
Maybe it's someone speaking in a different language that he finds
funny. It's all kinds of really cool,
funny ways to start a show before talking about the news
and having really terrible but still base level takes because
his audience doesn't want to hear nuance or, you know, any
sort of actual understanding of a situation.
They just want to hear what the talking points are across
conservative media and then add a little bit of violence to it,
a little bit of pro violence talk.
But. But yeah, we usually count 3 to
4 accents per episode. That's always fun.
Keep track with his his impressions.
And yeah. And there's a rotating cast of
behind the scenes, behind the scenes employees.
Tim the toolman is the main dude.
He's been there for a very long time.
His third chair is usually a comedian.
How many don't like Tim the Toolman?
Tim, you don't like that? Well, I mean, it's it's not it's
a much shorter person than Tim Allen, but this guy, listen, his
legs dangle from his chair. He hops down and it's it's
pretty cool. He's been Stevens friend for a
very long time. But for the most part, people
don't stay very long. I'm telling you, you got to give
you're looking for a gig. You got to keep your eyes on the
website because he will give you a funny nickname.
And as someone who's never been given a nickname, maybe that's
something I'm looking for. But it's just, it's a nightmare.
And it's, it's just such a poorly produced show on a daily
basis. They get things wrong.
But for the most part, sometimes we find ourselves sitting down
to make comments on the show and it's just like, there's nothing
to say. He's just saying racist,
transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic things.
And you know what is there to critique about that?
You know, it seems like he has been trying to do these sort of
same attention getting stunts or, or, or you know, going out
to the extremes to try to stir up some controversy.
He recently hosted Nick Fuentes for an interview.
Like he he got Nick Fuentes after red scare got Nick Fuentes
right. Maybe that tells you where his
show is at currently. He also recently published a
video about replacement theory and stuff.
But I just don't like when he did this on YouTube, it would
create a conflict between him and the platform.
And now they're censoring him. And now it's like, you know,
look at me, I'm under attack. And that can really invigorate
like a parasocial thing with his audience or get people there or
get people curious. But Rumble doesn't give a shit
about any of that, so. It's do whatever you want.
If these are attention seeking stunts, they don't really work
anymore. You have to get creative, Jared.
You have to escalate the and. That's giving him the benefit of
the doubt. That's looking at him cynically.
It's also completely possible he just believes this kind of shit
straight up. At this point, I think that is
possible. Recently, I think it must be
within the last year, he went on Pierce Morgan's uncensored
program and he was challenged to say the N word.
They're like, well, then just say it.
And he just said it three times. And that was kind of the kick
off of his new era of, of saying the N word and also complaining
that Piers Morgan on his uncensored show censored him
from saying the N word. And I'm like, that's a weird
thing to be complaining about. So then he, of course, published
the uncensored version on his YouTube page, which I don't
know, man. Yeah, absolutely right.
At this point, he's really done it all.
And it's kind of just down, but also in a different direction
from here, right? Like, there's only escalation
and, you know, intensification of his beliefs at this point.
That's probably as good a place as any to wrap it up here.
Mike, thanks for hanging in there.
I know you're under the weather hanging out, but I'm glad you
could. You can make it with us today.
In for a penny, in for a pound. What, what, what possibly could
shingles really be compared to listening to listening to Steven
Crowder use the N word? But Jared, you've heard about
this. What, who, who, what, What the
hell? Who the hell is Steven Crowder?
What is Steven Crowder? Maybe.
I don't. Yeah.
What is what is he? I.
Mean, when I look at Steven Crowder having, you know, gone
through everything to prep this episode with tremendous help
from Byron, right? I mean, I, we both brought in
stuff here and like, I had never really spent that much time
looking into Steven Crowder before.
And I started to wonder, like, why that was.
Because the more I looked at it, the more I was like, holy shit,
this guy's a big deal. Or at least was right.
And I knew he was a big deal, but I just never really took the
time to try to actually figure him out.
By the end of it, I feel like I was just more sad than anything.
He's just kind of a, in my view, a sad guy.
You don't not to go full armchair psychologist, but
there's like some kind of like I, I feel like I recognize some
kind of like self hatred thing going on, some sort of like
really deep insecurity here that like plays out.
We've seen this with like so many people.
It kind of plays out the same way we've seen it and other
people, right. But mostly who do I think Steven
Crowder is? I have to thank Byron for
texting me this morning. A link to one of Steven
Crowder's playlist on Spotify called Big Chillin.
It is Byron. I think you put it best like
this dude goes to a wedding and it's like they're playing all my
favorite songs right now. I've never met a One Republic
fan. It has it.
Seems like it's just Steven Crowder.
It has like, OK, so I skimmed it briefly, but it had, I was like,
what is this song? I don't remember what the band
is called like, but like it. But it's like that song that's
like, this is going to be the best day of my life.
Dump, dump, dump dude. And I was like, I only know that
for like fucking like drug commercials.
It's like drugs that get rid of rashes and like, you know, that
you can go back outside again and like, and shit like that.
I, I've, I've never like he listens to like music that you
hear and fucking Ms. now like drug commercials where it's sort
of like, hey, your herpes is under control and it's like, and
then you need an uplifting song that's like Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo
Doo Doo. That's what fucking Steven
Crowder is listening to when he's walking around or driving
in his car, apparently. Yeah, I mean, on this playlist
we've got you mentioned One Republic, The Lumineers, Milky
Chance Train, Coldplay. Coldplay, man.
Jeez. Al City.
The Fray. Avicii genuinely listens to
Imagine Dragons. He's got Thunder on here.
Maroon 5. Like I I don't even know how to
put it into words, but I know exactly who this motherfucker
is. I don't listen to any bands with
a fucking number on it. Like straight up, it's just.
I know, I know this guy. I've met a thousand of these
guys before. The last thing he added to this
just a couple days ago, about a month ago, was Iris.
Dizzy up the girl or Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls off Dizzy up the
girl. Oh dude.
And one song just added one song to it.
Big chilling, man, Big chilling, Big chilling.
That's what he listens to when he's big chilling, smoking a
cigar, saying God awful shit to his wife.
Mike, you've been a trooper hanging in there.
I apologize also because my, I'm like completely blasted.
I took Ativan as well because I was like, I'm like, you know,
just I want to be like my there's like nerve pain.
I was looking to calm that down. So I'm very sedate today.
But but Mike, after listening to all of this, who the hell is
Steven Crowder? I mean, he sucks.
So I have like very little to add here.
You guys know a lot more than I do.
But I just want to just like point out one phenomenon that
may be of use to our listeners who've made it to the end of
this, which is since the Trump era, there are very few people
in this mega world who really stand out as being
irreplaceable. This guy is replacement meet.
He is, he is replaceable. And I point I, I want to, I just
want to as a point of comparison, you have somebody
who is essentially a shark like Stephen Miller innocently.
I know it's an insult to sharks. What do sharks do?
They're they're just part of the ecosystem.
But like in the sense that like he's just, there's no feeling.
There's no depth of humanity. He's up at 4:00 in the morning.
He's sharing things about immigrants.
He's just hell hell bent on making this psychotic project
run. You got somebody like Steve
Bannon who I think is legitimately intelligent, all
judgements aside about his morals.
He is a person who is willed a lot of this into being.
You have somebody like it, Donald Trump, who is unmatchable
skills as a carnival Barker. Crowder is like one of those
guys who has power, or had power for sure over people largely
because of all this like slush money and garbage that just
floats around from billionaires to prop up this despicable
project and make all of our lives much worse.
Basically keep us from having affordable housing, keep us from
having affordable healthcare, keep keep the rest of us from
living so they can accrue more and more money.
And he's the perfect tool for that.
As you can see here, a guy who is not who could not have really
made it as a as a comedian, right.
He just doesn't have the goods who who's handsome enough to do
louder with Crowder, but is not handsome enough to do whatever
comedic films or something like that might come with a personal
economy. So he's he is a guy for when his
his story collapses, they will find somebody else.
And the same thing is true for Matt Walsh, who's a guy who
we're going to eventually, probably I do on here.
Maybe we'll do it before his peak like implodes.
But these people are replaceable.
And while they're at, you know, the top of the game, they are
really they really start to believe that they are a special
talent. And I'm sure that right before
that fucking Ring Ring footage emerged, he really thought there
was nothing you could bring him down because he was just such an
important person. And well, guess what, buddy?
You're not. Byron, I feel like I I have
overindulged and Steven Crowder, in the process of preparing this
episode, you have consumed way more, way more than I have.
So tell you, you tell us, who the hell is Steven Crowder?
Well, you, you both said a lot. So I'm not, I'm not going to,
I'm not going to dive too deeply.
But I will say that from everything I've taken in, like
maybe policy aside, I think that like Steven is just an insecure
boy. He's painfully struggling to
rebound from, you know, his childhood up through today.
Like he hasn't really grown as a person.
He's a product of a racist Christian nationalist father,
which we didn't really focus on too much because there's nothing
too well documented. All I know is from the little
snippets I get from Stevens upbringing, I know that there's
a mention of him. You know, this is one of the
things that drew me to him too, is that I'm I'm a similar age
and we kind of culturally started from the same place.
Like he was like an emo guy he used to listen to like Dashboard
Confessional and a bands like that.
And there's this moment where he said that his he was wearing a
bandana in his back pocket and his dad told him to take it out
and called him a slur. He didn't explicitly say that
part, but I think that's implied.
Steven is still trying to impress his dad, and it's
because of all of this that he is struggling to connect with
his peers, you know, fighting the beliefs that have been
impressed on him and his desire to participate in pop culture.
It's kind of this weird, perfect storm.
And then he got really lucky being an early adopter of new
media and and following YouTube trends.
And that is what brought him into the mainstream.
I don't think he's got the chops for it though.
And now he's found himself isolated, kind of lashing out at
any once friendly conservative peer that he had.
And his influence is sliding, which is only making him
desperate and explicit in his hate.
Like he's stuck. He's surrounded by people he
pays to be his friends in a compound that he never leaves.
And he's sad. Like you said, Jared, I just
wish that his his sadness didn't have to affect so many people.
I want to interject something real quick here, but it sounds
like you're at the end of the thought.
But I, I think I think this is useful to people because, you
know, if you follow this all through, you will recall that he
was offered a lot of money from Daily Wire.
Do you think he wishes he took that money?
I think he does. I think he I think that in the
window where he was making the largest career mistakes was when
it was a very emotionally difficult moment when his his
marriage was failing. Like if you read how much of A
wife guy Steven was at the beginning, like he wrote, like
we point out, we didn't read them these articles about
abstinence. He wrote an article about his
first night with his wife. He was the definition of a wife
guy. And it all fell apart around the
same time he started making these massive career missteps.
So yeah, I think he regrets it a lot.
I mean, I think. It seems like he was so high on
his own supply, man. Like he's just like, you know,
there's as I say, it was like, you know, it's sort of like you
think you're talented and you think you're not replaceable and
like in reality, you completely are.
I'm not, you know, I mean, it's a jokingly reference MF Dune,
but like all all, all artists who have like some kind of
signature talent that they bring that is very specific to them.
You know, when you're reading books, when you're reading it
and you're like this, this is this person's voice.
This is there. There's only one person like
this, right? You see, like Christopher Walken
act or something like that means you may not be the greatest
actor you've ever seen, but there's something that's so
idiosyncratic about Christopher Walken.
He's like, well, Christopher Walken does that.
Steven isn't anything. And like, you know, his, his
ability to entertain and engage is again, very, it's very
lukewarm. It's a very lukewarm thing.
And it's like, buddy, there is another.
Don't you understand You, you you.
You know how grateful you should be when someone offers you
$50,000,000 to be what you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
His, his shit is so low brow. Anybody can do that.
Anybody can do as long as they are willing to swallow their
shame, is the caveat. Anybody can do what Steven
Crowder does. I mean, I, I hate to be so like
empathetic in this experience with him because I agree.
Like there's this, also this. Level here we try to see
something in them as well as also.
Wondering. What might have happened had he
died in during one of his many death experiments?
But we we also try to look into his heart.
Yeah, the thing that I mean, there's this also this some some
sort of level, some degree of narcissism that makes him feel
like he's capable of doing all of this stuff mixed with
insecurity, which is a creates a Crowder.
And that's what we've got. And I just wish, I wish that it,
you know, I wish that it didn't have to affect, you know,
marginalized people and also take advantage of an audience
that he's exploiting. You know, I think that I think
that he's found a way to do that a little less good than he used
to. So thank goodness for that.
Byron, that brings us to a close here.
You Co host podcast called Louder than Crowder, which is
the the official, the flagship podcast about the podcast Louder
with Crowder. Tell folks about that.
I'd love it if Mike and I could join you guys for one coming up
in the near future. Yeah, I hope you.
I hope you are. You're welcome anytime.
Yeah, Louder than Crowder. It's a weekly podcast with I
guess it's a recap podcast. We we tend to focus on as though
we pick an episode once a week and break it down on these
larger events. Like we just got done covering
the Alex pretty assassination and that covered a span of
dates. But yeah, we we like to goof
around, but also it's a tends to skew serious from time to time.
Me, my Co host Dennis and my good friend Jared sit down.
Yeah, once a week. And it's available at on all
podcast platforms, Spotify, Apple podcast, whatever you
listen to louder than Crowder. And we also have something
called the Shrug Club, which is at shrugclub.com or
patreon.com/shrug Club where we investigate his stand up comedy.
We found some leaked comedy and don't know how this happened.
It's crazy. I just so happened to be at the
same show a couple years ago that Steven performed at and
somehow I acquired all this audio from this stand up set.
So we're breaking that down there.
We also have live streams that are also rebroadcast as part of
the Shrug Club, so you can go check that out.
Folks, go check out Louder Than Crowder and keep an eye out.
You might recognize a couple of voices on that show here in the
near future. Well, thanks for tuning in.
That was a long journey, but now you know more about Steven
Crowder than you ever did. We hope this can be a conclusive
biography of Steven Crowder, but there's been too many.
Jared's mentioned on the show. I'm getting confused.
I think it's time for us to go. We will see folks on the Patreon
on Thursday. There's a link to that in the
description. We're going to update you on the
good stuff, on all the news that we missed while doing this.
And for everybody else, we'll see you here next week on
Monday. Take care.
Bye everybody. See you.