Episode 277 · The Ben Avery Era
#277 - The New American Dream | The Tim Dillon Show
Nov 16, 2021 · 1:05:02 · 673,000 views · 23 segments, 137 moments indexed
Live from New York, Tim recaps a feud he had with a cast member at Saturday Night Live, discusses the rising popularity of the "anti-work" movement, and Ghislaine's dark days in prison.
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- 1 min
Cold Open: The Tim Dillon Media Empire
#Tim sarcastically frames the show as a massive media conglomerate born from Gas Digital under Luis Gomez, setting up the Michael Che feud story.
3moments
- Opening monologue about The Tim Dillon Show as a major media empire started at the Gas Digital studio
- Tim credits Luis Gomez as his tutor, comparing him to Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell's father, as a media mogul
- Tim jokes that people have accused him of being a powerful media figure and he can no longer deny it because facts are facts
- 4 min
The Michael Che Feud Over the SNL Joe Rogan Sketch
#Tim recounts tweeting that an SNL sketch mocking Joe Rogan's ivermectin use was lazy, prompting Michael Che to publicly claim Tim isn't a real comedian and only became a media figure because stand-up didn't work out.
6moments
- Tim tweeted about SNL's Joe Rogan sketch featuring Pete Davidson and Kyle Mooney as Big Bird, which recycled the discredited claim that Rogan took horse medication for COVID.
- The sketch was lazy, and SNL's political sketches in general rely on low-hanging fruit without executing well.
- SNL functions as a propaganda arm, which is fine—comedy shows should have a point of view—but lazy state propaganda is fair game for criticism.
- Michael Che, an SNL writer Tim never had issues with, responded by claiming Tim isn't what people think and only became a media personality because stand-up didn't work out.
- Tim's tweet got 40,000 favorites and retweets, proving his platform reaches people, yet Che accused him of taking the easier media route.
- If anyone is actually in the media, it's Che, who works for NBC—Tim has no major institution behind him except the studio owner Lewis.
Saturday Night LiveMichael CheJoe RoganIvermectinKyle MooneyCheesecake FactoryPete DavidsonRochester+3 more
- 3 min
Am I Actually a Media Figure?
#Tim compares his ticket sales and audience to SNL's diminishing cultural reach, arguing that podcasters and stand-ups are just as much 'media' as network writers.
8moments
- Tim questions whether he's known primarily from the podcast versus stand-up, comparing himself to Sebastian Maniscalco.
- He sells thousands of tickets around the world despite not being a household name from traditional media.
- Tim sarcastically suggests that everyone succeeding in entertainment—Doja Cat, anyone with sold-out shows—must be a Nazi or appeals only to Nazis.
- Michael Che tweeted a criticism about Tim not being what people think he is, prompted by Tim's observation that a sketch wasn't great.
- Tim speculates that Che got defensive because the sketch criticism "got under her skin," though he didn't intend it as a personal attack.
- Pointing out that a sketch was bad apparently makes Tim not what people think he is, a complaint that could apply to any critic of anyone on the show.
- Tim responded to Che by stating he sells more tickets and has built something on his own that Che never could.
- Tim's reply called Che someone who "barely reads" but acknowledged his success, saying the show "sucks" and Che knows it.
- 3 min
Defending SNL While Roasting Michael Che's Tweet
#Tim recaps the back-and-forth tweets, insists he doesn't dislike Che personally, and argues his criticism was meant to help SNL improve rather than attack it.
7moments
- Tim's tweet about Aretha Franklin was a pretty innocuous observation compared to other things he's said.
- The idea that internet-successful people aren't comedians justifies the lack of mainstream success SNL cast members have.
- SNL performers rarely sell tickets or excite audiences despite being given shows and budgets for sketch programs nobody watches.
- SNL sketches don't go viral the way Tim's content has; the show isn't a voice that matters except during the Saturday night broadcast.
- The show no longer launches people into orbit the way it used to, and usually gets attention when people say the sketches are bad.
- Tim attacks SNL performers weekly and viciously, but his intent is to help the show get better, not to be antagonistic.
- Stand-up comedy is media, and Tim addresses SNL cast members as fellow media members about improving the work.
- 2 min
Applying to SNL as a Joke Consultant
#Tim jokes about having his agent inquire whether SNL would ever bring him in mid-season as a writers' room consultant, acknowledging it will never happen.
5moments
- Tim asks what people's favorite stand-up is, noting they'll cite internet-famous comedians because shareability matters more than medium.
- Drawing lines around one kind of funny is weird—he's never questioned a writer's Instagram presence or demanded David Sedaris explain his political views.
- Tim plans to submit SNL packets as a joke, considering whether his agent might pitch him as a mid-season consultant for the writer's room.
- He acknowledges the chances of SNL hiring him mid-season are very low, but notes not everyone has to like you anyway.
- Being called a media figure is a weird way to insult someone—Tim takes it as a compliment.
David SedarisCody Ko
- 1 min
Read for BlueChew, the online erectile dysfunction chewable service, with promo code TD for a free trial.
3moments
- Tim opens a BlueChew ad by noting that confidence can take you far in life, especially in the bedroom.
- Tim says he loves BlueChew and gets excited to see the postman, then pivots to the importance of lasting impressions.
- Special offer: listeners can try BlueChew free using promo code TD, paying only five dollars for shipping.
- 1 min
Read for BetterHelp online therapy service, touting easy counselor switching and affordability, with a discount code.
4moments
- Tim pitches BetterHelp as professional online counseling for people who can't access help locally or don't want to leave their house.
- You can switch counselors anytime at no cost if the therapeutic match isn't working out.
- BetterHelp is cheaper than traditional offline counseling and offers financial aid.
- Tim reads the promo code offer: 10% off your first month with BetterHelp.
- 1 min
Gas Digital Chatter and Midtown Ralph's Running Updates
#Tim riffs on network mechanics, mocks Gas Digital co-owner Ralph's constant updates about his daily mileage running, joking about a health scare and getting hit by a car.
4moments
- Ralph, the Gas Digital co-owner, now runs 12 miles a day and constantly updates everyone about it.
- Tim catalogs Ralph's running updates: eight miles, nine miles, roasted chicken in an air fryer before the next run.
- Ralph didn't have a health scare—he just got heavy during the pandemic and decided to start jogging.
- Tim imagines Ralph getting hit by a car while jogging, still tasting Brussels sprouts from his healthy breakfast.
- 3 min
Intro to the Anti-Work Movement
#Tim introduces an article about the anti-work movement of people permanently leaving the workforce, and argues from personal observation that people who don't work aren't happier, just more online and paranoid.
6moments
- Anti-work movement is people leaving the workforce permanently, not just taking a break
- Tim respects the idea but wonders what happens on day three when the novelty wears off
- Humans get self-worth from their job, a claim Tim says is now controversial
- During the pandemic everyone said freed workers would plant community gardens and do good—it didn't happen
- People he knows who don't work aren't doing well in any conceivable way, financially or otherwise
- Friends without jobs become angry, paranoid people spending all their time online figuring out their misery
anti-work movement
- 4 min
Business Insider, Dave Portnoy Hit Pieces, and Fake Journalists
#Tim explains how a Business Insider reporter/failed comedian interviewed him and later revealed the outlet wanted a hit piece on him, leading into a taxonomy of journalists vs. stenographers vs. failed New York media types who resent independent media figures like Portnoy and Rogan.
10moments
- Business Insider ran a hit piece on Dave Portnoy and planned one on Tim and another comic.
- Tim was interviewed by an open mic comedian who quit to work for Business Insider.
- The interviewer asked terrible questions while Tim sat in a parking lot smoking cigarettes.
- Real journalists are people with white hair who research Kennedy assassination and die alone unfulfilled.
- War correspondents run around getting shot at, win Pulitzers, get cancer, and die alone unfulfilled.
- Stenographers write what the government wants them to say and live in big houses with published books.
- Brian Williams lied constantly and nobody caught him because lying becomes intoxicating without consequences.
- New York media types write for glorified blogs, eat ramen, and live on floors after getting useless degrees.
- These struggling journalists love unfunny comedians and other talentless people because they lack talent themselves.
- They create listicles about 25 comedians nobody will know, forming little groups that nobody cares about.
Brian WilliamsBusiness InsiderAlex JonesDave PortnoyTom Brokaw
- 3 min
Media, Portnoy Spitting Incident, and Being Called a Media Figure
#Tim continues riffing on the Insider reporter's confession about the planned hit piece, recounts Dave Portnoy spitting in his mouth as a bit, and reflects on being lumped in as 'the media.'
6moments
- Established media outlets resent Dave Portnoy and independent operations like Barstool because they're siphoning eyeballs away from CNN and ESPN.
- New York media types attack independent operators out of institutional jealousy, the same way outlets go after Rogan.
- Tim doesn't mind being called media—if he is, then everyone sitting at a desk in a suit working for NBC and Saudi ownership is media too.
- Publications like The Guardian and Business Insider write inflammatory anti-work articles designed to provoke working people into outrage.
- The media narrative portrays Dave Portnoy as predatory, spinning a joke into a conspiracy that he's choking and spitting in women's mouths across Nantucket.
- Tim attended a Barstool event where Portnoy spit in his mouth as a bit, called him "Pig," and walked away—jarring but not entirely unexpected.
Dave PortnoyBarstool SportsThe GuardianJoe RoganBusiness Insider
- 4 min
Covington Kids, Kyle Rittenhouse, and Political Violence in the Streets
#Tim argues the Covington Catholic kid was unfairly targeted, calls Rittenhouse's mother a bad parent for dropping her armed teenage son at a riot, and makes the case against normalized street violence while begging Rittenhouse not to publicly side with him on Twitter.
8moments
- Journalist quit Insider over refusing to run a hit piece on Tim, claiming the outlet wanted to portray him as a reactionary right-wing lunatic.
- Covington Catholic kids faced media destruction for standing calmly while a man beat a drum in one teenager's face—a reaction Tim calls tame compared to how most people would have responded.
- Kyle Rittenhouse case was self-defense, but the 17-year-old should never have been patrolling streets with an AR-15, and his mother dropping him off at a riot with a gun is terrible parenting.
- Young people join gangs and militia groups because they want to feel important and serve a function, the same psychological drive that sent Rittenhouse into the streets.
- Tim's controversial opinion: we shouldn't have political violence and chaos in the streets with people killing each other, which he describes as basic civilization.
- Calling for civilization is now coded as a white supremacist dog whistle, according to the discourse around these incidents.
- Tim fears Rittenhouse will get acquitted and then tweet at him endorsing his take, which would damage Tim's credibility on the issue.
- Having any opinion that contradicts what people want you to believe results in anger and name-calling, regardless of the actual merits of the position.
- 4 min
Tim tears into a Bloomberg article suggesting Americans should embrace empty store shelves and reduced consumption as a positive lifestyle shift, calling out the hypocrisy of billionaire-owned media telling regular people to consume less.
6moments
- Bloomberg article frames supply chain shortages as potentially good for Americans, suggesting they should live like Europeans instead of consuming endlessly.
- Tim acknowledges Americans consume too much and are too fat, but argues a spiritual shift toward meaningful activities is the sustainable solution.
- Walking into a store with empty shelves won't change consumer behavior—people will just buy whatever they can find.
- The same people promoting body positivity and saying fatness is healthy are now telling Americans to live like Europeans and not be fat slobs.
- It's strange for billionaires at Bloomberg to tell ordinary people to reduce consumption and drive less while they accumulate more wealth, jets, and property.
- The suggestion that people bike to the grocery store instead of drive is absurd and condescending—they're essentially telling poor families to bike on highways with their kids.
- 5 min
Tim dissects the Insider anti-work profile of 'Larry,' a man who abandoned his wife and kids to live in a trailer behind his mother's house, arguing the article dishonestly frames deadbeat parenting as a revolutionary labor movement.
7moments
- Tim notes he's been living the 'work-free lifestyle' for years.
- Tim mocks Larry's definition of 'power couple'—buying a house in the suburbs and taking vacations—as just ordinary American life, not actual power.
- Larry's wife left Colorado, quit work to raise their children and care for her elderly father, and eventually left him.
- After being laid off, Larry moved back to South Carolina to live in a 20-foot trailer in his mother's backyard.
- Tim points out the article glosses over the fact that Larry abandoned his wife and children in Colorado to pursue his simple lifestyle.
- The media celebrates this as a worker empowerment movement, but Tim calls it exactly what it is: being a deadbeat dad.
- Tim separates actual worker organizing from what Larry did—this isn't unionizing for better benefits, it's abandoning his family to live in a trailer.
Larrywork free lifestyle
- 3 min
Europeans Actually Work, and America's Furry Kids
#Tim argues real European culture involves work plus family and romance, contrasting it with an American culture that discourages both sex and family bonds, riffing on absentee parents raising 'furry' kids.
7moments
- Publications push articles claiming it's good not to work and to live in a trailer with your mother, running the "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy" narrative from the pandemic.
- Europeans actually work—they go to cafes, get food, smoke cigarettes, and have sex, unlike the sexless autistic culture America created.
- France rejected the me-too movement during its height, saying they like fucking and won't participate in that culture war.
- America tells people simultaneously: don't have families, don't fuck each other, don't do anything, and also don't work.
- American culture throws elderly people into nursing homes where they get beaten, and young people run away from families to be successful, unlike Europe where family is central.
- Americans have one child when they're 40 and the kid is a furry because the parents are so insane and work-focused they don't know what's happening in their kid's life.
- Having a furry kid locks you back into work because you've already fucked that one up and need to escape the house.
- 2 min
Tim reads reactions from the anti-work subreddit, including a moderator's defense of the movement and a Gen Z worker named Kade who quit his job over a no-phones-during-shifts policy.
7moments
- A moderator on r/antiwork clarifies that the subreddit isn't about laziness, but about capital flows being unfair and the current system being non-existent.
- Kade, a Gen Z worker in Kansas, quit his job after his boss posted a sign banning phone use during shifts.
- Tim mocks the idea that a boss telling workers to get off their phones counts as tyranny or a Grapes of Wrath situation.
- Tim suggests Kade can't go a whole day without looking at furry porn, which is why the phone ban pushed him to quit.
- Kade claims he never sees anybody not doing work while on their phone, and objects to management taking away personal property.
- Kade frames his quitting as joining a bigger movement; Tim notes the subreddit has grown to over a million members.
- Tim predicts more people will stop working soon.
anti-workCade
- 5 min
Vaccine Mandate Goalpost-Moving and Endless Boosters
#Tim describes his own vaccination and growing confusion over shifting COVID vaccine promises, questioning why boosters keep coming with no clear endpoint and comparing the social pressure to Salem witch trial-style shaming.
11moments
- Articles about workplace vaccine mandates are designed to ensure compliance through employment leverage.
- Questioning the vaccine narrative gets treated as Holocaust denial in public discourse.
- He asks followers how many more boosters they'll take, realizing there's apparently no end goal to the booster campaign.
- Tim got vaccinated early and was willing to comply, but the authorities keep moving the goalposts about what the vaccine actually does.
- Public health officials originally claimed the vaccine stops transmission and prevents symptoms, then denied they ever made those claims.
- The final pitch for boosters sounds like a desperate parent yelling at a kid: do you want to die?
- Tim questions why people are being fired en masse for vaccine refusal if vaccinated people can still get infected and spread it.
- He doesn't understand the rationale for mandates that disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic communities.
- Tim wonders when the masks come off for kids and adults now that vaccination is widespread—the moving target creates suspicion.
- Anyone demanding compliance gets accused of wanting to storm the capital if they push back.
- The implicit threat—question anything and we'll destroy you—is what actually scares him about the whole situation.
- 2 min
Read for ShipStation's e-commerce shipping platform, touting ease of use and a holiday-season free trial offer.
2moments
- Tim endorses ShipStation for its ease of use and the money it saves, mentioning friends who run e-commerce businesses with it.
- His friend nearly got hit by a car because she was so unconcerned about shipping logistics after using ShipStation.
- 1 min
Read for SimpliSafe home security systems, mentioning cameras, monitoring, and a holiday discount.
2moments
- Tim laughs at the way Ben pronounced "camera."
- Tim reacts to the price point of SimpliSafe systems starting at just over a hundred dollars.
- 5 min
Tim reacts to the start of Ghislaine Maxwell's trial, joking about media speculation over an Epstein trafficking/blackmail ring, and describes her complaints about jail conditions like rats and rotten food.
9moments
- Ghislaine Maxwell's trial starts today.
- Tim outlines the evidence that Maxwell and Epstein were running a child trafficking ring for wealthy and powerful people, including government members.
- The media will gradually report on Maxwell's trafficking operation as if discovering it months from now, pretending ignorance of what everyone already knows.
- Maxwell's father was a known Mossad agent; speculation suggests Epstein himself may have been an intelligence asset for Israel or the U.S.
- The suspected operation was a blackmail scheme: compromising powerful people on video to gain control over them—what the media will cautiously call 'speculation.'
- Maxwell is complaining about jail conditions: a rat sits next to her on the toilet, guards watch her in the shower, and she's served food with maggots.
- From socializing with kings, queens, and presidents, Maxwell has fallen to rotting in a Brooklyn Detention Center, a dramatic loss of status.
- Tim suggests putting Maxwell in a five-star hotel with heated towels and internet instead of jail, calling current conditions inhumane.
- Maxwell claims negative media coverage will poison her jury pool, and Tim acknowledges the concern has merit—most people have already made up their minds.
- 3 min
Tim discusses Ghislaine Maxwell's husband Scott Borgerson denying knowing her, and introduces her defense attorney Bobby Sternheim, previously known for representing a Bin Laden associate.
6moments
- Tim explains how the intelligence world works: if you roll, it destroys not just you but your family and everyone you've cared about.
- Borgerson has disappeared and is being hounded by the press asking about his wife's situation.
- Tim describes the New Hampshire estate where Maxwell was discovered—a beautiful one-million-dollar retreat where she was arrested.
- Maxwell will likely get convicted and spend the rest of her life in jail, or worse.
- Tim thinks Maxwell should have a woman lawyer for a fair trial and good chance of getting off.
- Her actual lawyer, Sternheim, is a trial lawyer who represented one of Bin Laden's associates—not a great look.
Ghislaine MaxwellScott BorgersenOsama bin LadenBrooklyn detention centerNew Hampshire
- 4 min
Scripting Ghislaine Maxwell's 'Halo Effect' Defense
#Tim improvises the courtroom defense strategy lawyers might use to paint Maxwell as a naive dupe manipulated by Epstein, riffing on the 'halo effect' argument and mock opening statements.
8moments
- Bin Laden was clean and Ghislaine Maxwell is also clean
- Tim argues Maxwell's defense team needs to 'yes Queen it up' and find a female lawyer who can sell her innocence
- If he were her lawyer, Tim would open with a jury appeal about men lying and stringing women along for dark purposes
- Ghislaine Maxwell portrayed as a sweet, unsophisticated daughter of a media mogul who got caught under Epstein's influence
- The defense is calling it the 'halo effect'—Epstein surrounded himself with people who would serve his needs
- Tim notes the defense strategy requires turning Maxwell into something she isn't, a dupe rather than a villain
- The narrative they have to sell: this man took advantage of a good woman, and it's happened before
- The lawyer needs to whip up the jury with anger, framing Jeffrey as a liar who deceived her about fitness videos on the island
Jeffrey EpsteinGhislaine MaxwellBobby Sternheim
- 1 min
Tim closes the show thanking producers Shannon and Natalie and Gas Digital, joking that the show will end where it began if it's ever cancelled.
2moments
- Tim thanks Shannon and Natalie from the Gas Digital studio for their work on the show.
- Tim jokes that when the show is eventually thrown off the internet and canceled, they'll probably end it at Gas Digital too.