Episode 371 · The Studio Revamp
The Chinese D’Amelios | The Tim Dillon Show #371
Nov 25, 2023 · 1:20:44 · 434,000 views · 16 segments, 103 moments indexed
Tim talks about social media sideshows, how to behave with your family, an ideal dead-end job, wealthy people on DMT and the true meaning of life.
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- 1 min
Tim opens explaining they are pre-recording before Thanksgiving, teasing a special guest episode and a holiday break for the show.
1moment
- Tim welcomes listeners to the show and explains it's being recorded days before Thanksgiving
- 1 min
Noa Tishby Returning (Again)
#Tim jokes about bringing Noa Tishby back on despite the fact that her previous episode tanked the show's viewership.
2moments
- Tim announces a holiday break with two episodes to binge before returning in late November or December.
- Tim expresses excitement about Noa Tishby returning as a guest.
- 1 min
Wait, Are Those Kids in the Wonka Movie?
#Tim reacts to a clip of Timothée Chalamet promoting Wonka in Japan surrounded by children, finding the whole scene deeply uncomfortable.
2moments
- Tim won't stop trying to get Noa back on the show despite the previous episode tanking in views.
- Timothée Chalamet promoting the Wonka film in what Tim thinks is Japan.
- 9 min
Zhao Zhao and Wu Long: China's TikTok Freak Show
#Tim goes deep on two Chinese TikTok influencers, a transgender presenter and her hunchbacked friend, spinning it into a theory that society is returning to Depression-era carnival sideshow culture and human oddities on display, while also recounting his Friendsgiving party guests.
10moments
- Tim suspects the children in the video were withheld food until they performed those movements.
- Zhao Zhao is a 36-year-old from a Chinese province who is big on Chinese TikTok, and her friend Wu Long is a hunchback.
- Tim says China's transgender presenter is polished, put-together, and really trying, which he appreciates.
- Tim likes seeing someone who is transgender commit and try to the best of their financial ability.
- Tim predicts that finding people who are deformed will become more common, part of society's final barbaric phase.
- Tim believes we're returning to a 1920s tent-era carnival sideshow circus, with fascination for deformed people and freaks.
- TikTok has become about putting human oddities on display and marveling at them, gawking at them.
- At his Friendsgiving, Tim spent most of the party reading about Zhao Zhao and Wu Long instead of talking to guests.
- Zhao Zhao and Wu Long started when Zhao Zhao performed at a benefit event; Wu Long previously spoke only one word before social media.
- Tim prefers Zhao Zhao and Wu Long over Charli and Dixie D'Amelio and predicts they'll become household names.
Zhaozhao and WulongFox NewsBari WeissCaitlyn JennerTana MongeauBobby LeeCharli D'AmelioDixie D'Amelio+1 more
- 10 min
Tim reads and mocks a Fox News article giving advice on how to handle disagreeable relatives at Thanksgiving, riffing on the QAnon boutique in Florida, the article's absurd tips, and framing it as turning your house into a personal dictatorship.
12moments
- Tim describes a friend who opened a QAnon boutique in a Florida motel—a hoarder's house filled with '90s games and Trump merchandise.
- Fox News runs articles telling readers how to handle relatives who don't agree with them during Thanksgiving.
- Tim argues that news networks like Fox and MSNBC aren't designed to inform; their job is to wind you up and send you out into the world as a dervish.
- Fox News tells readers that relatives who don't understand QAnon or underground tunnels need to be banned from speaking or have strict boundaries set in your house.
- Tim mocks the credibility of 'mental health experts'—the article quotes Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist and executive performance coach, author of 'Be Fearless, Change Your Life in 28 Days.'
- Fox News plugs books by the experts weighing in on the article, including Amy Morin's '13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do.'
- Tim jokes that hint number 13 is that mentally strong people don't look at the poor.
- The article suggests you don't have to invite family members who've raped everyone, but Tim notes it gets complicated if the rapist agrees with you politically.
- Tim asks who this article is actually for—what person is sitting at home unsure how to manage Thanksgiving dinner?
- The entire article boils down to turning your Thanksgiving table into a fascist dictatorship where you're the dictator and anyone who might defend Guatemalans or question Gaza is shut down.
- Tim describes Fox's audience as wanting to yell about Guatemalans at dinner, but worried someone will ruin it by suggesting they're people or questioning killing 12,000 in Gaza.
- Tim illustrates the fear Fox is addressing: someone mildly suggests killing 12,000 people in Gaza seems like a lot, and everyone yells the person is out of line and ruining the holiday.
Fox NewsAmy MorinJonathan AlpertWu Long
- 11 min
In Defense of Thanksgiving Arguments
#Tim argues that family fights at Thanksgiving are healthy and the whole point of the holiday, spinning into an elaborate fictional story about a miserable suburban husband masking his loveless marriage by screaming about Gaza and trans kids at the dinner table.
11moments
- Tim mocks the premise of a Fox News article about keeping hot topics out of Thanksgiving conversation.
- He jokes about telling a relative not to return to the holiday, specifically over their mixed-race child.
- Tim attacks the Orwellian nature of articles providing ten-point plans to prevent disagreements at dinner.
- Arguments at Thanksgiving are supposed to happen—people sitting in a tryptophan haze should be fighting about nonsense.
- His father and wife brought uninvited dogs to his grandmother's house, and his uncle's anger was justified.
- Young people should prank their families by claiming they're in Hamas or converted to Islam on the drive over.
- Everything with value is controversial; people might as well discuss the Middle East while eating if they want memories.
- From childhood onward, Americans get to casually sound off on topics with real world consequences for people everywhere.
- His family fought more about personal things than politics, but there's nothing wrong with a knockout argument between two uninformed people.
- Masking emotional despair from a loveless marriage by screaming about Gaza or trans kids at Thanksgiving is as American as apple pie.
- The entire point of the holiday is to feel morally superior and mask your pain through high-horse arguments.
- 3 min
Tim reads ad copy for Helix mattresses (25% off plus free sleep bundle) and DraftKings Sportsbook's Thanksgiving NFL betting offer.
4moments
- Tim recommends the Midnight Luxe from Helix as the mattress guests consistently praise in his house.
- Mattress salespeople are emotionally disturbed; shopping for mattresses is an insane experience.
- Tim describes Helix's quiz system that matches customers to their ideal mattress based on sleeping style.
- DraftKings Sportsbook offers money lines, parlays, props, and live bets for NFL Thanksgiving week action.
HelixDraftKings SportsbookTempur-Pedic
- 3 min
Tim reads ad copy for Helix mattresses (25% off plus free sleep bundle) and DraftKings Sportsbook's Thanksgiving NFL betting offer.
4moments
- Tim recommends the Midnight Luxe from Helix as the mattress guests consistently praise in his house.
- Mattress salespeople are emotionally disturbed; shopping for mattresses is an insane experience.
- Tim describes Helix's quiz system that matches customers to their ideal mattress based on sleeping style.
- DraftKings Sportsbook offers money lines, parlays, props, and live bets for NFL Thanksgiving week action.
HelixDraftKings SportsbookTempur-Pedic
- 1 min
Tim reads the lengthy legal disclaimer text required for the DraftKings gambling ad.
1moment
- Tim reads through the complete gambling disclaimer, hitting all state-specific hotlines and legal requirements.
- 8 min
Tim discusses the commercial real estate crisis, WeWork's failure, and argues that remote work is destroying an essential part of American culture and community that used to exist in physical offices.
10moments
- WeWork collapsed as a business model for shared office spaces.
- Tim argues that eliminating offices amputates a major part of American culture, losing the communities where people meet friends and spouses.
- The evolution from physical offices to digital Zoom meetings represents a significant shift in how relationships form between coworkers.
- Face-to-face relationships differ fundamentally from those built digitally, and tech billionaires prefer people isolated at home.
- Working from home strains marriages, as Tim notes from observing friends who spend every minute together in the same house.
- Commercial mortgages require constant refinancing, and without new loans available, properties head into foreclosure.
- 44% of respondents expect office property prices to bottom out in the second half of next year, with 30% saying no recovery until 2025 or later.
- 270 billion dollars in commercial real estate loans mature in 2023, with debt maturities peaking at 550 billion over four years.
- New York City has a 22.2% office vacancy rate despite being the world's most dynamic city.
- Tim riffs on San Francisco's 34% office vacancy by imagining employees avoiding the office after Donna got slashed across the face there.
WeWorkcommercial real estateNew York CitySan FranciscoThe OfficeMark Zuckerberg
- 6 min
San Francisco Vacancy Rates and Donna Getting Slashed
#Tim cites vacancy rate statistics for NYC and San Francisco, then invents a bit about an office worker named Donna getting slashed with a pen on her way into a nearly empty San Francisco office building.
10moments
- Remote work is becoming the norm as people abandon traditional offices.
- Office culture represented a core piece of American life: the secretary, the boss, coworkers, fantasy football.
- Trading office Americana for Zoom culture means disheveled people logging into a hellscape from home.
- Tim defends work and offices despite socialist complaints about the meaninglessness of labor.
- The pandemic showed that when nobody worked, life wasn't actually peaceful or ideal.
- People in developed countries would happily take data entry jobs in a Long Island office with coffee and purpose.
- George, a mail carrier with melanomas, found happiness delivering to the office because people knew his name.
- People like Natalia derived purpose and belonging from their job in the office, even if they weren't special.
- Everyone thinks their job is keeping them from their passion, but many actually find fulfillment in office work.
- Eliminating office spaces sends people back to kitchens and creates isolated, disaffected unemployed people.
Zoom cultureoffice cultureThe AmericanaLong IslandStarbucksRussia
- 24 min
The Beauty of the Dead-End Corporate Job
#Tim delivers an extended riff insisting that boring corporate office jobs, office gossip, hating coworkers like the fictional 'Deb,' and Geico-style dead-end work are actually the peak of civilization and a source of real meaning, contrasting it with wealthy ayahuasca-seekers and mocking hustle culture.
25moments
- Tim would love to work a couple days a week at Geico, despite doing what he does now.
- Nothing better than being in a dead-end job with other losers, surrounded by successful wealthy people instead.
- Rich people just want to take ayahuasca and open their third eye until aliens in hyperspace tell them to get a job.
- The deepest conversations Tim has had were outside call centers or mortgage offices, smoking cigarettes in parking lots.
- In a shitty job where people aren't going anywhere, coworkers become war buddies and it becomes fun.
- Closing offices and sending people home to work makes them miserable instead of building the camaraderie that actually matters.
- The online hustler culture claiming everyone is one self-help book away from being a CEO needs to stop.
- Attending corporate conventions in Cleveland with other losers and trying to get laid there is a good life.
- The demise of commercial real estate worries Tim because it was essential to American corporate culture.
- At corporate jobs you're allowed and encouraged to hate people, be bitter and resentful—things you cannot say at home to your wife.
- The commercial real estate crisis is amputating an essential part of American society and civilization.
- Working in dead-end jobs with broken dreams is actually the happiest people will ever be, contrary to what they've been told.
- Tim wishes he wasn't rich and didn't live in a mansion, genuinely wishing he could work at Geico instead.
- Being bitter, resentful losers angry at a company they barely understand, eating big sandwiches—that's what was great.
- The paramilitary structure of corporate jobs is beautiful, especially compared to other options like sex trafficking.
- Tim would respect Phoebe Bridgers more if she worked at IBM while still making music instead of pursuing art full-time.
- Why do artists have to choose between their talent and working corporate jobs—why can't they do both?
- Peak civilization is getting up, going to an office with clowns, eating a donut, and emailing someone they've been denied coverage.
- Americans have already passed peak civilization; being bored at work is something people in Gaza would desire.
- One of the meanings of life is to work at Geico and figure out how to get food and shelter.
- A dead-end corporate gig where you're riding in the middle, getting free tickets, taking clients—that's the accomplishment.
- The energy should go into fighting to get people back into the office, not just Palestine and Israel activism.
- We should have fought for the office, the break room, the deli in the building basement—we should have fought for civilization.
- The greatest regret of Tim's life is that he doesn't work in an insurance company in Ohio instead of having wealth and success.
- The happiest Tim's ever been was in a bank with girlfriends talking about which bankers had the biggest dicks, not doing charity work in Africa.
GeicoayahuascaIBMPhoebe BridgersAmerican ExpressFiona AppleGazaKevin Hart+4 more
- 2 min
Tim describes the contents of his monthly Bespoke Post Box of Awesome subscription box, including a candle and mixed nuts, and gives the discount code.
1moment
- Tim jokes that his Bespoke Post box contained white phosphorus as the third item.
- 2 min
Tim reads a sponsor spot for Morgan & Morgan personal injury law firm, citing car accident statistics and their track record of settlements.
4moments
- Tim cites statistics on fatal accidents and high-risk driver age groups, warning listeners to protect themselves.
- Morgan & Morgan operates over 100 offices nationwide with 800+ lawyers and has recovered $15 billion for 300,000 clients.
- Tim emphasizes how easy it is to submit an injury claim and urges people not to carry the burden alone.
- Contact information and call to action for Morgan & Morgan's free-unless-they-win fee structure.
- 1 min
Tim runs through the list of upcoming tour cities and venues including Detroit, Toronto, Austin, and several others, directing fans to timdilloncomedy.com.
1moment
- Tim says he can't get another job, directs listeners to timdilloncomedy.com for tour dates across Detroit, Toronto, Austin, Columbus, DC, San Antonio, Dallas, Atlanta, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Boston, and Connecticut.
- 3 min
Closing Riff: The Dream of Just Getting a Drink After Work
#Tim closes the show with a wistful, extended fantasy of an ordinary man clocking out of a boring job, driving home listening to classic rock, and having a drink with friends, arguing that this simple contentment is the only real dream worth living.
5moments
- Tim describes his dream: logging off work, getting in a mediocre car, hearing a song he likes on the radio, and driving out of an industrial park.
- The real dreams in life are the ones you don't realize you're living — sitting in a parking lot, happy, without knowing it's your dream.
- At the bar with the guys, having a cocktail and joking about nothing, realizing everything you do is nothing.
- Putting the phone down, watching the game with a drink and a few people — single or married, young or old, doesn't matter — you're just alive and need nothing else.
- Society has convinced people they need much more than that simple contentment, and that's the problem.