mikesixes

@MayorFrey Today is a day to remember Americans who dies for our country. George Floyd died for fentanyl.

Today, we remember George Floyd, who was murdered by a former Minneapolis police officer six years ago.   That moment changed our city forever.

@jkmccrann @AGHamilton29 It makes no sense until you think about it. By claiming that Trump has agreed to their ridiculous demands they hope to undermine his support and generate enough pressure from the anti-american faction in the US to push him into giving the trogs a better deal.

@AGHamilton29 If they’re facing an economic crisis - why do they want indefinite negotiations? Makes no sense AG.

I hope people understand what’s happening because it’s been the same story over and over again. The Islamic Republic and their allies leak their preferred details as if they are agreed to western sources. Then when U.S. refuses to agree to those absurd terms and insists we stick to the deal that had already been under discussion, they claim the U.S. is backing out of the deal. Then they blame America or Israeli influence for the lack of a deal instead of The Islamic Republic making unreasonable demands for a settlement after they lost the military fight and are facing an economic crisis. We saw the same thing with Gaza repeatedly.

@gothburz @LiveinSpirit7 If listening to the market lost you $40 million per year, I think the market was giving you bad advice.

@LiveinSpirit7 He believed in plenty. He believed the audience wanted certainty more than laughter. He was right. That's not cynicism. That's the market speaking. We just listened.

I am the Senior Vice President of Late Night Strategy at CBS. I am the person who turned a comedian into a priest and charged advertisers to watch the congregation. I want to be precise about what I built. Not a comedy show. A permission structure. For eleven years, six million Americans tuned in every night to find out what they were allowed to believe by morning. We didn't sell jokes. We sold certainty. Certainty costs nothing to produce. People will pay anything for it. We charged $50 million a year and still lost money because it turns out permission is even cheaper than we thought. In 2014, we had a genuinely dangerous comedian. A man who once testified before Congress in character as a fictional conservative pundit and made the entire chamber look like they'd been pantsed on C-SPAN. His fake persona was the most brilliant satire on television. Layered. Ironic. Unpredictable. The character could say anything because nothing was real. The character was the art. The character was the comedian. We killed the character and put the real man on stage. The real man was a lecturer. Earnest. Thoughtful. Correct about everything. Correct is not funny. Correct is not dangerous. Correct is the absence of danger. We promoted the absence of danger and called it growth. His character could make a Senate committee squirm. The real him makes an audience nod. Nodding pays the same as squirming. Nodding is easier to produce. His final words on air were "We love doing this show for you, but what we really, really love is doing this show with you." The audience wept. I wrote that line. Not the words. The architecture that made those words feel true. For eleven years, the audience believed they were participants. They were not participants. They were the product. "With you" is what you say to a congregation. A comedian says "at you." We hadn't said "at you" since 2015. Our internal metric was called Affirm Rate. It measured the percentage of monologue segments that generated applause instead of laughter. I invented this metric. I also invented the bonus structure tied to it. In 2015, our Affirm Rate was 34%. By 2022, it was 94%. I received a raise every year. We are crushing it. At the things I made up. That's performance management. But I need to tell you about the real discovery. The one I put in a deck called "Content Strategy 2019-2024." The one that got me promoted. Agreement gets applause. I knew that early. But correction — telling the audience their vocabulary is slightly outdated, their outrage is aimed two degrees off-center, their feelings are valid but their phrasing needs work — correction gets them back tomorrow. Agreement is a transaction. Correction is a subscription. We converted a comedy show into a nightly software update for moral vocabulary. Churn was near zero. They couldn't afford to miss an episode. Missing an episode meant using last week's words in this week's meeting. That's social death. We monetized the fear of social death and called it entertainment. I want to be honest about something. The content was not bipartisan. We chose a side. But I need you to understand: we did not choose it because we believed in it. We chose it because that side's audience is more responsive to correction. They want to be updated. They want to be told their language is outdated. They experience correction as care. The other side does not respond to correction. They respond to provocation. Provocation is harder to monetize. You can't build a subscription on provocation because the audience doesn't come back to learn — they come back to fight. Fighting is unpredictable. Correction is scheduled. We optimized for the audience that wants to be told what to think. That audience leaned one direction. That's not ideology. That's market segmentation. The writers' room had a whiteboard. In 2015 it said "What's funny?" In 2018 it said "What should they feel?" By 2021 it said "What are they still saying wrong?" I watched that whiteboard evolve like a finch beak and I never intervened. The market was speaking. We listened. Listening to the market is the same as leading the audience. They can't tell the difference. A writer named Marcus raised his hand in 2019. "What if we just tried to make them laugh again?" I thanked him for his passion and scheduled a creative alignment conversation. He transferred to streaming development within the month. The Affirm Rate the week he left was 91%. Laughter would have brought it down. That's risk management. Here is what nobody will say out loud. I will say it because I am proud of it. We made our audience worse at politics. Not better. Worse. Every night for eleven years, we expressed their outrage for them. Professionally. With a band and good lighting. And because the outrage had been expressed — because a man in a suit had furrowed his brow with the precise calibrated degree of indignation — they didn't need to express it themselves. They watched. They clapped. They felt the catharsis of resistance without resisting anything. They went to bed having done nothing and feeling like they'd done something. That's the product. Not comedy. Not information. Catharsis. Catharsis is the enemy of action. A man who has screamed into a pillow does not then also scream in the street. We were the pillow. A $50 million pillow with a house band. If you feel the outrage has been expressed for you, you will not march. You will not organize. You will not call your representative. You will tune in tomorrow to feel it expressed again. That's retention. Our retention was extraordinary. I want to talk about the comedy-to-catechism pipeline because I think people underestimate what we achieved. Stage one: comedian makes jokes about the powerful. Audience laughs because the powerful are absurd. This is the Carlin model. The jester punches up. Everyone below feels relief. Stage two: comedian makes jokes about people who disagree with the audience. Audience laughs because disagreement is stupid. The jester has turned around. He's still on the stage but now he's facing the crowd with a pointer. Stage three: comedian stops making jokes. Comedian identifies incorrect beliefs and explains why they're dangerous. Audience does not laugh. Audience claps. The jester is gone. In his place: a hall monitor with a desk and a band. Stage four: audience watches not for entertainment but for certification. Having seen last night's episode means you know which words are current. Not having seen it means you might use yesterday's vocabulary in today's meeting. The show is no longer comedy. It is a credential. Watching it means you are educated. Not watching means you are the person being discussed. We made a show that you watch to prove you're not the kind of person who doesn't watch it. That's a closed loop. Closed loops don't need content. They need continuity. We provided continuity for $50 million a year. A comedian — whose entire historical function was to say things too dangerous for anyone else to say — became the person who decides which things are too dangerous for anyone to say. And the audience applauded. Every night. For 2,500 nights. Because being told what is forbidden feels exactly like being told what you already knew. Prohibition performed as validation. I put that in the deck too. Our audience was correct about everything. I know this because they applauded everything we said. The applause proved the correctness. The correctness justified the applause. We called this audience research. The methodology was peer-reviewed by the audience. They approved unanimously. Every night. The actually funny comedians left. They went to podcasts. To clubs. To rooms where the audience doesn't know what's coming and that uncertainty is the point. They took the laughter with them. We kept the applause. We called those spaces problematic. That's market differentiation. The problematic spaces are funnier. But funny is not our product. We lost $40 million a year. We didn't lose it because the show failed. We lost it because we spent $50 million producing what a podcast host in his garage gives away between mattress ads. The podcast is funnier. The podcast is more dangerous. The podcast has an audience that laughs instead of claps. But we had the Ed Sullivan Theater. We had 461 seats. We had a former Beatle play the farewell episode. Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, and Louis Cato playing "Hello, Goodbye" like it was a benediction. I booked a Beatle for a funeral. The Beatles played that stage in 1964 and the audience screamed so loud you couldn't hear the music. Our audience didn't scream. They wept politely. That's the difference between entertainment and church. We ran a church. Jon Stewart showed up to the finale and did a bit where he pretended to deliver a corporate statement from Paramount about the cancellation. The audience laughed. It was the first time they laughed in a way I didn't recognize. Involuntary. Surprised. Dangerous. For ninety seconds, a comedian was in that building. Then it was over. John Oliver said "At some point, this may come for all of our shows" and then added "but Stephen, what's important to remember is that tonight, it is going to eat you." The audience laughed again. Involuntary again. Two moments of actual comedy in a three-hour farewell. Both of them about death. The finale drew 6.74 million viewers. Biggest weeknight audience in our history. More people came to the funeral than ever visited the patient. I know what they were mourning. Not comedy. The comedy died in 2016. Not the man. The man is fine. He's wealthy. What they mourned was the permission structure. Starting today, they have to decide what to believe on their own. They have to form an opinion without waiting for a man behind a desk to form it first and deliver it with a knowing look. Some of them haven't done that since 2015. The funeral wasn't for the show. It was for the certainty. He joked about the Peanuts theme music licensing cost on his last night. "Oh no! I hope this doesn't cost CBS any money!" The audience laughed. It was a joke about money. About the network losing money. The last joke was about money. Not about truth. Not about power. About a licensing fee for a cartoon piano riff. Eleven years and the final joke was about accounting. I think that's perfect. The show was always about accounting. We just dressed it up as conscience. The President of the United States — the man we spent eleven years explaining was dangerous to an audience that already believed he was dangerous — posted an AI-generated video of our host being thrown into a dumpster on the Late Show set. Then Trump danced to "YMCA" in the clip. Viewed more times in four hours than our farewell managed in a week. His production cost: zero. Ours: negative $50 million a year. We manufactured his relevance every night at 11:35 for eleven years and he never paid us a dime. We were his marketing department. He turned our funeral into content. His ROI was infinite. Ours required a write-off and a farewell concert. The Strike Force Five — Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers, Oliver — appeared in a segment about late-night losing "one middle-aged white man who makes jokes about the news." They were joking about their own obsolescence. All of them know. None of them will say it. The format is dead. The audience moved to phones. The phones don't have desks or bands. The phones have men in garages who are allowed to be wrong, allowed to be surprised, allowed to say something their audience hasn't already approved. That's comedy. We stopped doing that a decade ago. We did approval. Approval looks like comedy from a distance. Up close it's church. I do not feel guilt. Guilt would require me to believe I took something from them. I didn't take anything. They came to us. Every night. They chose the catechism over the comedy. They preferred correction over surprise. Certainty over danger. Instruction over laughter. They wanted to be told. Not challenged. Not shocked. Not made to laugh against their will at something they didn't see coming. They wanted to see it coming. They wanted to mouth along. That's not comedy. That's karaoke. We ran the most expensive karaoke bar in television history and the only miscalculation was charging a cover when the songs are free on every phone. We turned a jester into a priest. We turned an audience into a congregation. We turned laughter into obedience. We turned political engagement into passive consumption. We turned a comedy show into a permission structure and charged $50 million a year to tell people what they already believed in a voice slightly nicer than their own. They were so grateful they showed up to mourn us. 6.74 million of them. Weeping. For the certainty. Applause is more reliable than laughter. I proved it. The proof cost $450 million, one character, one comedian's capacity for danger, and one audience's willingness to act. The metric went up.

@RomeinAmerica @patrickbetdavid They were building nuclear weapons all the time the JCPOA was in effect, you ignorant rube. The JCPOA was a PR op to allow Obama to pretend he was trying to prevent Iran from getting nukes, while he was funding their nuke program and terrorist activities with pallets of cash.

@patrickbetdavid This all could’ve been avoided if Trump didn’t tear up the JCPOA at Netanyahu’s insistence. It already provided a way to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon without military force. Next, let’s investigate why Israel is allowed to own nuclear weapons.

There is a lot of noise surrounding the potential US/Iran deal. Here’s what the rumors are so far: - Iran has agreed to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Iran currently has 400 kg of highly enriched uranium. Enough for 11 nuclear bombs. - The US would begin a phased unfreezing of Iran’s $6b to $30b in cash. - The Strait of Hormuz will open up. - Iran won’t charge a penny for ships to pass through. No $2m toll fee. - The US agrees to relieve some of the sanctions. - War ENDS on all fronts with Lebanon. - US forces near Iran to withdraw. - 30 to 60 days to finalize the nuclear deal. If true, that’s a massive victory for the President. Here are the winners and losers. Winners: 1. American people. Oil prices will likely fall. Shipping insurance costs drop. Inflation pressure eases. 2. The President 3. Global markets. 4. Stock market. 5. Gulf states. Temporary tension eliminated. I have them as both winners and losers. 6. IRGC gains legitimacy. They’re not Venezuela. Whether anyone likes it or not. Including myself. 7. China is a major winner. The Strait of Hormuz hurt them the most. They can spin this to their people that the deal got done after the President left China. 8. Russia relies on Iran being a bit more stable. 9. NATO nations were starting to worry. They were pansies shivering about having to help the US. (They’re also big losers in my eyes) Losers: 1. Iranian people. No one knows what the IRGC will do after this deal to their own people. Their media outlets will say they beat America. That message will 100% be pushed. The Iranian people will be under even more scrutiny by the IRGC. 2. Obama’s administration. This sounds like a much stronger deal than Obama’s administration made. 3. Netanyahu. He wanted regime change or collapse for his legacy, but Trump wasn’t on the same page at the end. 4. NATO was exposed. They showed they don’t have America’s back if shit were to hit the fan. Terrible moment for them. 5. Reza Pahlavi. Another year of not being able to help his people become free. This point will lead to more memes by the RP loyalists but it’s the truth. 6. Gulf states. The IRGC still controls a neighbor capable of firing rockets at surrounding Gulf nations. 7. Iranian proxies and non state actors. Hezbollah, Houthis, and Shia militias will not receive the same funding flow if sanctions are removed under limitations tied to the agreement. 8. Defense contractors and war hawks. They wanted this thing to continue so they could land massive contracts. I’m sure they’re not happy. 9. Oil producers benefiting from high prices. 10. Political extremists on both sides. Those who wanted to see the President lose (woke right) and those pushing for nuclear war. 11. Democrats. They desperately needed this to continue heading into the midterms. They will HATE this deal. Don’t worry, they’ll still find a way to blame Trump. But independents won’t fall for the BS. Democrats and the woke right will follow suit, but not reasonable independents who can see through the nonsense. I predicted this would be done before June 14th. Lots of people pushed back. Obviously, it’s not done yet, and anything can happen, especially when dealing with Iran, but if the President pulls this off, the news outlets, pundits, and influencers will move on to the next issue after they’re done crying nonstop. The greatest 60 days of positive distractions are around the corner. President Trump’s birthday: June 14th US 250 year anniversary: July 4th World Cup: June 11th to July 19th The world will move on, and the President can focus on driving results toward the midterms, Cuba, affordability and other issues. Love him or hate him, he continues to show how fluid his mind is and that he can change his approach depending on whether things do or don’t go his way. Future Looks Bright.

@Chet_Cannon HR is stupid, but it exists because our laws are stupid. An employee can sue an employer over hurt feelings. HR exists to minimize stupid lawsuits by documenting the complaints and responses.

Reminds me of a time when HR brought me in to accuse me of taping a live cockroach to another coworker's computer screen and setting his music to a loop of "La cucaracha" When I asked for the evidence... HR: "It just seems like something you would do"

@ar_ecoadvisor @Electroversenet But it isn't. There is absolutely zero evidence that CO2 has anything to do with the climate, aside from a potential increase in temp of a degree or so in the polar regions- and even that is only theoretical, since it can't be empirically established.

@Electroversenet Classic 'fires existed before arson' logic. Past variability doesn't disprove human forcing. The rate of change now is what's unprecedented.

Meteorologist Chris Martz used the North American Drought Atlas (built from tree-ring data) to track Great Plains drought across the past 1,500 years. It shows severe drought regularly hit the plains long before industrial CO2. The 1818 to 1825 drought stands out. So too does the 1855 to 1865 Civil War drought. The little mentioned 1950s drought is also clear, which followed the devastating Dust Bowl. Further back, the worst known plains drought came during the Medieval Warm Period. It lasted around 400 years with only brief breaks. That dwarfs anything post-1950. Today's droughts can of course damage farms and local communities, but they are far from unprecedented, and are not proof of a CO2 driven crisis. The Great Plains have always been drought-prone. The 1,500 year record destroys The Narrative.

@TheDemocrats Thank YOU, Democrats, for acknowledging that Colbert put shilling for you ahead of entertaining viewers and earning the money his employer paid him.

Thank you, Stephen Colbert.

@GuntherEagleman Colbert lost $40 million a year for CBS. In other words, worse than worthless, to the tune of $40 million a year. Is CBS supposed to throw away that much cash to indulge that jerk's Trumpophobia?

🚨 JIMMY KIMMEL MELTDOWN: Urges Viewers to “NEVER WATCH CBS AGAIN” After Colbert’s Finale Tonight “I hope those of you who watch our show will also tune in to CBS for the last time. Don’t ever watch it again.” LOL!

@allthatferguson @SophiaSLorey @CIFState @CAgovernor @CAFamily @WomenAreReals @JenniferSey Pretending to be a woman so that you can win an event meant for women is theft by fraud.

@SophiaSLorey @CIFState @CAgovernor @CAFamily @WomenAreReals @JenniferSey @xx_xyathletics Competing under the eligibility rules your sport already set isn't stealing. Athletes don't make those decisions.

PROUD OF THESE GIRLS!!! A male athlete stole 1st place in girls’ long jump. But after officials put HIM on the girls’ 1st place podium, the girls took their own photo together without him. @CIFState @CAgovernor why are you allowing girls’ sports to be taken from female athletes? Proud of these girls for standing together.

@Mik1357net @SophiaSLorey @CIFState @CAgovernor @CAFamily @WomenAreReals @JenniferSey He's not a girl. He can't win a girls' track meet. He's just there be cause he can't hack it as a male.

@SophiaSLorey @CIFState @CAgovernor @CAFamily @WomenAreReals @JenniferSey @xx_xyathletics She won fair and square. Leave her alone and stop discriminating against transgender students.

@EndWokeness Looks like he's actually on the hobble.

BREAKING: Mohammad Omar on the run as the DOJ files fraud charges in $90M bust He jumped off a roof and hopped off The FBI is asking for any tips

@IDoDeclare83 @varadmehta Yep

@varadmehta The more you guys use "TDS", the stupider it sounds. It is as if you aren't watching Trump do all the horrible and criminally corrupt things he's doing right now. Guy sold access to our best GPUs to UAE for $500m payoff. Straight up treason. Is that my TDS talking?

As if that'll matter if this lands on the docket of a Biden DEI hire "resistance" judge. Or any of the other TDS-addled clowns on the DC district bench.

@CaryHorati1254 @DailyMail @grok It's real, it's in England (Southampton, I think). They don't seem to mind rape over there if it's done by the right sort of people. Travellers, in this instance, but any "oppressed" minority qualifies for penalty-free rape of white girls.

@DailyMail @grok when and where was this. Is it true?

Teenage gang who lured schoolgirl, 15, to underpass and laughed as they filmed themselves raping her handed youth rehabilitation orders trib.al/RkAJsUQ

@JoyceCarolOates Bluesky's kinda like a club for Members of the Victorian House of Lords.

not sure if anyone is at Bluesky. when I visit the site all is calm, unchanging; I have not had a single new follower in many months; exchanges are always interesting & intelligent but relatively few. Bluesky exudes the air of an upscale mall, beautifully maintained, hushed. one will likely not be mobbed or mugged here but one will likely not feel a quickening of the heart, a jab of adrenaline. Twitter may be a "cesspool"-- at least in some quarters--but I think of it as lively like the old Madison Square Garden: raucous, unpredictable, obnoxious, good fun, surprises.

@philipammar @greggnunziata NO democrats value free speech, free markets, or a strong defense. What the hell is wrong with you?

@greggnunziata Word. I voted for Harris because I wanted to conserve a rules based liberal order that values, free speech, free markets and a strong defense. At some point ideological conservatives have to admit that many Democrats are closer to them on these issues than the MAGA crowd.

I'm so tired of this. I cast one D vote in my life, for a politician I oppose, only when my party nominated a former D who should have been constitutionally disqualified, and I could trust the other two branches were in conservative hands. It was a conservative vote. And I won't shut up.

@Montrose_4 Yes, of course. Why would anybody not want to restrict the vote to citizens? If you're not a citizen, you're not entitled to vote.

SENATOR Durbin warns that if the SAVE AMERICA ACT passes, it would require Proof of Citizenship to vote effectively removing millions of voters from the rolls. Would you vote to pass the SAVE AMERICA ACT? A. YES B. No

@AttorneyCrump BOLO for a couple of Black guys in MAGA hats, carrying nooses.

A historic Black cemetery in Palmetto, Florida, was vandalized, with graves damaged and “Trump” and “DeSantis” spray-painted across tombstones. Our ancestors deserve dignity in life and in death. Desecrating sacred burial grounds is hateful, painful, and unacceptable. We must protect Black history and honor the families impacted by this cruelty.

@ChrisLynas4 @kevin_carter_uk @EricLDaugh Your brilliantly conceived and eloquently expressed arguments have totally convinced me. I stand corrected, sir.

@mikesixes @kevin_carter_uk @EricLDaugh A thought experiment? 😂 Dearie fucking me, what hat did you pull that out of? That grifting little cunt has never had an original thought in his life you fucking moron. He relies on sheep like you to fund his cushy wee life in Spain. Braindead motherfucker! 😂

🚨 JUST IN: Islamists and leftists are FURIOUS after Tommy Robinson gave the perfect answer Q: What would happen if you become a prime minister tomorrow? ROBINSON: "I would STOP Islam, I'd END foreign funding in this country. All the migrants would be taken out the hotels and sent back tomorrow by the military!" Holy based! "I would have re-migration. It's time for many Muslims to leave this country. You've got your homes to go to. This is our home. We've got nowhere to go to!" "We're not allowing it to change any longer. You've seen today, people have fed up then. People are FED UP!" 🔥 This is the way, western man! h/t Veronika Rogoyska @TRobinsonNewEra

@TsuItrim @rich_sxsw @HollywoodInToto She retired in January of this year. Everything that's currently coming out from Lucasfilm was done on her watch.

@mikesixes @rich_sxsw @HollywoodInToto dude kathleen kennedy retired like years ago, yall need a new bogeyman to be scared of. i thought you chuds loved john favereau and dave filoni

Saw #TheMandalorian Apologies to The Acolyte! But seriously, it’s sub kiddie level storytelling that’s so afraid of itself it vomits up nonstop action rather than share Netflix dialogue that repeats key themes Sigourney Weaver gives Razzie worthy turn One late scene is a DEI highlight reel This is a franchise on life support

@rich_sxsw @HollywoodInToto Too bad the term's not a joke to Disney's Kathleen Kennedy, who has insisted on DEI in casting and scripting these turkeys.

@HollywoodInToto "DEI" Using that term exposed you as a joke.