Tucker and Jon Stewart Are Running the Same Grift | Ep. 28 with Bridget Phetasy

The defining illness of new media isn't bias. It's audience capture — and a generation of hosts on both the left and the right have stopped trying to lead an audience and started trying to be picked by one. Bridget Phetasy has watched it happen, written about it, and shed followers for refusing to play along. Jeremy is joined by Bridget Phetasy — comedian, writer, Spectator columnist, and host of Walk-Ins Welcome and Dumpster Fire. She's one of the few people in this space willing to tell her own audience when they're wrong–and admit to them when’s she’s wrong–and she joins Jeremy for a conversation that ranges from the news of the moment to the deepest questions of how a person stays honest in public life. They get into: audience capture as the defining illness of new media; Bridget's argument that Jon Stewart sitting with Zohran Mamdani and Tucker Carlson sitting with Nick Fuentes are doing the exact same thing — chasing the in-vogue youth demographic on the left with Hasan Piker-style socialism and on the right with Candace Owens and Thomas Massie-aligned nationalism; the late-night ratings machine that built our chase-the-youth instinct from Letterman, Leno, Conan, Fallon, and Kimmel onward; why Don Henley, the Eagles, and the Beatles all stopped making the zeitgeist when they aged out, and why that's how it's supposed to work; the early COVID skeptics Liz Wheeler, Steve Deace, and Jesse Kelly versus the political class (Donald Trump included) who Jeremy believes should have been disqualified from government over the response; the Hollywood-patron model versus the conservative-media model, with Megyn Kelly as the rare network actually developing talent and Matt Walsh as the case study in what network leverage can do for an already-driven host; the 12-step inventory, the regret piece, motherhood, and the resentment culture; Bridget's faith arc from Sam Harris and the new atheists through Emmet Fox and the Lord's Prayer; and what she wants her daughter to remember her for. Also referenced: Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Konstantin Kisin, Dallas Sonnier, Andrew Klavan, Alana Newhouse, Allie Beth Stuckey, Ben Sasse, Joel Berry, James Lindsay, Michael Young, Jordan Peterson, Alex Jones, Taylor Lorenz, and Erika Kirk. 1:01 How Audience Capture Is Eating New Media 8:52 The Analytics Trap and Selling Out Your Soul 15:25 "More MAGA Than MAGA" and Algorithmic Dementia 23:14 Networks, Solo Acts, and the Matt Walsh Lesson 34:24 Hollywood, Patrons, and Why Conservative Media Won't Make the Next Roseanne 42:48 Tucker, Jon Stewart, and the Gen Z Trap 52:49 Don Henley and the Burden of Staying Zeitgeisty 59:27 Postmodernism, Nick Fuentes Going Mainstream, and the Plague That Wasn't 1:10:41 Why Hasn’t Anyone Been Punished for COVID? 1:19:17 Sometimes the Trolls Are Right — Regret, Motherhood, and Resentment 1:50:28 Faith, Sobriety, and What Bridget Wants to Be Remembered For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices