Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / REACTION: Premier League Shame || SLP458

Transcript

REACTION: Premier League Shame || SLP458 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello and welcome back to the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is wonderful to have you with us.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Today we bring you a reaction that Glenn and Nate recorded in response to something that happened on the Arsenal Twitter account.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: So on April the 16th, uh, so that was Sunday, they posted a video with the caption Making Memories with Our Mascot Heart emoji.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a video of uh a young girl getting her Arsenal shirt signed by the players.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what what I didn't know about football would fit on the back of a postage stamp, but um Arsenal is a a f football club, so I'm told.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: This little girl is uh having her football shirt signed lovely, right?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh except it turns out that this video triggered a huge amount of outrage online, and you're about to find out why and how we can make sense of this.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So why is it that we're that people have felt this outrage?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is it justified and what does it show us about humanity?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: What does it show us about God and the world and the way we've been made?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh can we get all that from an Arsenal video?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: We think so.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just to say, this was posted on our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash speaklife media.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Glenn and Nate did record it with uh potential podcast listeners in mind, so they do try and explain what's going on in the videos that they react to.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, if you want to get the the full experience of uh watching along with them, then do go and check out the video on our YouTube channel.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hello, welcome to Speak Life.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Nate.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Glenn.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: And today we are going to do a reaction video or podcast to um an Arsenal football club social media post that has caused quite a lot of a stir.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's been performing rather well.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: On Twitter.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the views have been through the roof.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: I bet it's their best performing video in months at least.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: 8.4 million views in the last 24 hours, I guess.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh this post went out uh so April 16th, 2023.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm at half past one in the afternoon, and they tweeted this title, Making Memories with our mascot, Red Heart.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Red Heart.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, let's just watch the video and see what all the fuss is about.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: See what's going on.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: So for those uh who are not watching, um, there is a mascot, a girl who's aged, what do we think, eight, nine?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: Something like that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: Eight, nine, ten, with her dad.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh she and her dad are holding an Arsenal shirt, and the players who are all listening to their pre-game Spotify playlist, Eye of the Tiger, or whatever.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Look, there's Martin Odegaard.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: He's signing the cat shirts, they've all got their AirPods in.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: And the girl is just holding it.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: The father is.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's Ben White.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: He used to play for for Brighton Hove Albion, I believe.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Boy Done Good.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, yeah, they're all there.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Just signing the shirt.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we can't.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: We can't hear a lot of audio.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we can imagine that the players are whispering under their voices.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Look, Bukai is hacker.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: He plays for England.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: He's the Star Boy.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: There he goes.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: Christian Christian boy.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Signs his shirt as well.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: 8.4 million views is is this?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: This is I mean, I don't know why.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's not a lot happening apart from people signing a I'm I'm imagining, given the outrage that's been stirred by this, they're probably saying under their breath, You're nothing, little girl.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: You are you are not you're wearing that shirt, but you don't have any right.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: You don't deserve this.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Just hold that shirt steady.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's Zinchenko, he's Ukrainian.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: He that's at battle on East Pokemon City.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: But look, I'm expect what's gonna happen at the end of this video, because so far almost nothing has happened.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Sign in the little the shirt, there they go.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: Where's the twist?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: Where's the t where's why the outrage?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: Did someone throw the pen at her or something?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely nothing happens in one minute 49 seconds, but I guess that's the problem.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is, summed up by uh TV's Nick Knowles, at Mr.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Nick Knowles, who said when he quote tweeted this video, he said, I suggest, Arsenal, you get her and her family back and give your players another go at being decent human beings.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Admittedly, they'd have to be coached into it, but it might be something that sticks with some of them if it's pointed out, right?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: But it wasn't just TV's Nick Knolls.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: No, who I don't know what football team he supports.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: It was also an Arsenal football fan, TV's Piers Morgan.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: Famously a guner.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: Who says, uh, come on, guys, at least one of you say hello to her.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Question mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then a Man United fan uh at Emma Ham41 said, Memories of being blanked by your heroes.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Which is a nice caption.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: So the the point is It's been quote tweeted how many times?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's about 8,000 times.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: 8,000 times.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: Is it something?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: The ratio on this is something to behold.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so at the at the time of recording, 1,379 retweets, 6,400 quote tweets.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: And ratio is when people's comments about a thing uh far outnumber the people who are positively sharing the thing.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: Sharing and liking it.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so what what are people getting so upset about, mate?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the fact is that these players did the absolute minimum of signing this girl's Arsenal shirts and they should have done more.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: They should have been more involved, they should have taken more time, they should have looked her in the eye, they should have spoken to her, should have taken their earbuds out.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's only polite to do that with another person.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: Having a nice day, Princess, or whatever, you know, they say.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, they don't all talk like that because most of them aren't actually from London.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, so what should they have done?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they should have done more than that.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Now the problem is uh this is a one minute 49 second video about a day's experience.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: And her father, who is also in this video, he's holding the shirt taut so it can be signed.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he uh tweeted a response to TV's Nick Knowles and the rest when he said, My daughter had a lovely time as mascot for Arsenal.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: There was only a small window to meet the players, and she enjoyed it very much.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Odegaard is her favourite player, so to hold his hand onto the pitch was very special.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then he's uh added to that tweet a photograph of her beaming with a little a little cute wave to her dad as Martin Odegaard.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: Isn't that?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: She just doesn't recognise how marginalized she is.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: She just doesn't recognise like the the the Well, she thinks she's had a nice day.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's the problem.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's the problem.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's the problem.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: But she thought she had a lovely time.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Her dad thought she had a lovely time.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: She doesn't understand that her heroes are monsters.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: They're all monsters.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: She needs to learn.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you wouldn't get this with Port Mail.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Or any other football team.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's only the Arsenal players who are this arrogant and entitled and dismissive of the small people.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: It reminds you of everything that is wrong with Emirates.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's the Well, what's interesting, it's not actually at the Emirates Stadium.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's at the stuff.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I was doing some reading on this, and uh the Arsenal, if you want to be a an uh an Arsenal official matchday mascot for the Arsenal men's football team, um you need to be a junior gunner, which means you pay like a£15 membership fee.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Is that all?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, alright.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then you go into a sort of ballot to be picked, and as a mascot, your junior gunner will have the opportunity to lead their heroes, that's a very important word, which we'll come back to, onto the pitch in front of thousands of cheering fans at Emirates Stadium.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: But this wasn't at Emirates Stadium, was it?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because this was an away game.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: She's an interlope.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: West Ham.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: She shouldn't have even been there.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: She's lucky she got their signatures, this interloper.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: West Ham Match Day Mascot West Ham Match Day mascot package.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: They enjoy an unforgettable experience meeting their Claritin Blue heroes leading the team out onto the London stadium pitch in front of 62,500 fans.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it goes into great detail about what that match does.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: So they get a lot of bullet points, though.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: They get a lot of bullet points, photos and everything.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: So part of the challenge is that Arsenal football club are not hosting this match.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so they only have one matchday mascot, which is this young girl who had a lovely time, by the way.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: And got to meet uh Martin Odegaard as well as the rest of her uh favourite Arsenal first team players.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And yet the West Ham matchday mascots probably all had just as good a time.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: But we have eye contact included in any of these bullet points here.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: See, I mean none of them are promised eye contact.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't I don't think they have any kind of contractual quibbles that they could take up legally.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: A fine day to be blanked.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it is like so when you watch that video, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just be really honest.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: When you watch it through that frame.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: When you watch that video and you see little clips that's sort of edited out all the breaks in between, as each player, one after another, after another, after another, signs the shirt and then moves on.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: You're and you're framed to be told, look at how little attention they're giving this girl, right?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: You do sort of think, yeah, they it was a bit rude.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like they could have taken the rearbods out and they could have like sort of you know, sort of shaken a hand.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Could have given the girl a table to put a shirt.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: She didn't need to be there at all.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: They could have just said, lads, uh, we're just signing this shirt for the mascot, she's outside getting a burger or something like that.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: But they arranged it so that she'd be there.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't put her on all fours, they just put on her back.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: But the point is, but we because we've seen so many social media posts of match day mascots having the experience of a lifetime, and some of them can be actually very effective, right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So there is one uh in particular that uh I was reading about April uh 2018.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um here is uh Jack McLinden, Everton fan, having a remarkable match day experience.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so we'll just go to that.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: So this is um he is the first virtual mascot, okay?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: So he was too sick to actually go to Goodson Park to go to the game.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so what they arranged was for him to be virtually represented by A V1, a robot, which was is then going to be carried onto the pitch by Phil Jagalka, who was the captain that day.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so as uh he's going onto the pitch, um they are then he's able to hear everything that's going on, they can see him, they can uh engage with him publicly.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just a remarkable thing.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: You see that Phil Jagelka holding him, yeah, and then they walk down doing the handshake with the rest of the mascots, and then he gets to sort of engage with it in that way.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: So so we see all these moments, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: And we think almost like the entire club, yes, because of this framing, the entire club exists to elevate and to and to celebrate them, to unite them to their heroes.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so the Arsenal social media person for today thought they were doing something a bit like that.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, here's a girl, she's really happy to be there.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And because whoever was in charge of the edit forgot to include the little moment where she's walking out with the bubbles, because it's West Ham, right?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: She's walking out and the big smile from her dad's camera phone.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Holding her favourite player's hand.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: They forgot to include that, so basically every single Arsenal player gets thrown under the boss as being being horrible and awful.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: Because they're all anti-Christ.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's the problem with them.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's a big thing to say.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: Well, because this whole thing, it's Christian outrage we're feeling here.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like, because the the beauty of Jack McLindon is that here is the week the marginalized the lowly being lifted up, united to his champion, included in their game, included in their victory so that they win and Jack McLinden celebrates.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's incredibly Christian.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: And every time you go through Facebook and you know, you see the pictures of, you know, I the other day I just saw um a severely autistic kid playing basketball, and he's kind of brought on in the last couple of minutes of a game, and he hasn't played all season, he's been on the bench the whole season, and he's sort of given the ball and he shoots and he misses, and the opposition gets the ball and give it back to him.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then he shoots, he misses again, the opposition giving the ball back, shoots a third time, he gets it, and the roof just goes over.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just and it's the lifting up of the lowly.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's this incredibly Christian thing.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: And how can in a Christianised society we do anything other than exult in that Christ-like experience?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: Then you come to Arsenal and they fail to be Christ, they are anti-Christ, aren't they?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they are the ones who are themselves currently high and lifted up at the top of the league at the time of recording.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So um they dropped points.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: They dropped uh four points in two games, giving away a two-goal lead against both Liverpool and West Ham.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's all to play for.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's all to play for.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: Man City yapping at their heels.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so the the prince high upon their throne is about to be cast down.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so don't we love the prince being cast down?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's a German word, isn't there, of enjoying that that that bringing down of the exalted Arsenal Freud.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: Schadenfreuder.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: And and so, yeah, what is it?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: We we love to see the high and exalted cast down, and we we long to see the lowly lifted up, and when that doesn't happen, we're like, yeah, you you'll get in the neck Arsenal Football Club.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: One other thing it shows me is like the importance of framing.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: Because if whoever is holding that mobile phone is like from a different angle, you know, maybe maybe over the girl's shoulder, you know, you would you would perhaps catch uh some eye contact, you know.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: Who knows?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm sure one of the footballers at some stage of that day made eye contact with that girl.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, I'm sure that I as you say there'll there'll there be moments that she's clearly had, right?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because by her dad's admission, right?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think he's just protecting Arsenal because he's an Arsenal fan.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: Although he has he has copied and pasted the same text.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this is true, but has their company got in contact.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: The guy has been pulled in.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Now you might say this is all look, he's trying to you know make himself famous through his daughter.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: I really don't think this is what's going on.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: What's happened here is that a man has managed to get through this whole ballot experience to have his daughter lead the Arsenal team out onto the pitch, even though it is at the Olympic Stadium, and she's had a really wonderful time, yeah.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that experience has been boiled down to one minute and thirty-nine seconds of monstrous antichrist behaviour.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: No eye contact by these tyrants who have been cast down.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, force not even a given a table to uh to lean her shirt upon.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: And and and so the framing of it just goes to show that certainly when it comes to social media, I think 95% is about framing.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like the con the content is so you know.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: So on this video, we'll have to think long and hard about the thumbnail we're gonna use in the title.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: And anyone you ask about how do you how do you boost your YouTube channel?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's all about the thumbnail, all about the title.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: Why?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's just it's just the frame through which you you view something.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Attention economy.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to grab people's attention and you have to draw them to it.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: So Arsenal wanted with that post, you know, uh, of you know, making memories with our mascot.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: They wanted that post to get coverage.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: They they put some framing around it and they edited it together in a way that they had not realized.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hi folks, it's Thomas Thoroughgood here, media producer at Speak Life.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: You might recognise my voice as the guy who does the filler bits on the podcast.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of my job to think of how we can include you more in the work of Speak Life and bring you behind the scenes, if you will.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have a very exciting thing called the Speak Life Discord server.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's an online platform where you can interact with other Speak Life supporters and the Speak Life team.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have bonus content, creative theological discussion, and lots of fun along the way.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to join that, you can just go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash give.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, back to the podcast.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: But in so many ways, when you release something out onto social media, if it does catch fire, there's a sense in which whoever was in charge of that social media, they probably they didn't see it the same way we've seen it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the same way TV's Nick Knowles sees it.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: But is well, yeah, exactly.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then we see it through TV Nick Knowles' eyes, and and now and now it's a completely different beast.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so, like you can ask the question, why didn't the PR person, why didn't the social media executive in turn, 19-year-olds, why didn't they, why didn't they see what a car crash this was going to become?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't see that one minute and 49 seconds.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: They did not see that one minute and 49 seconds because they did not see it framed through Pierce Morgan's retweet or or the you know the trending hashtag.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: It becomes a thing of its own.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: So the framing's important.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then the other thing that social media does is it makes you say, This, this, this is that! Hey everybody! Yeah, you see that little thing that happened on the other side of the world and that I have no connection with, but but you know, for some reason the algorithm is showing me that that's exactly like this other thing that is really terrible.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: Hey everybody, this thing is really terrible.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, what's that the what is that this is that, so that video is is indicative of what it's the marginalization of the little people, right?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a girl as well, it's the it's the marginalization of the small, the poor, and the weak, and these rich millionaires playing a game and callous to the the simple naive joy of the little people.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: How dare- how dare they?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's just like and then in your head.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's just like what is it just like?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's just like a million other things, and you're not actually watching those one minute 49 seconds.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: You are you are triggering the rage that you feel at this narrative of the world that you have, which is probably a thumbnail sketch that goes something like, the rich are marginalizing the poor, and it's a it's out it's an outrage.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: And do you think so?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: I remember um in the theological training that I have done that people often talk about uh different conceptions of sin, which are predominant in the West or in the East.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so people would say, well, when it comes to the West, because of you know, Lex Rex, uh sin is defined in terms of uh keeping or breaking the law.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: So sin is law-breaking according to uh the West.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: In the East, it's actually a shame-honour culture, and so what you think about sin, you're talking about you brought shame upon something, and so um we need to be raised up to honour again.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: And social media, arguably, is not about breaking the law or keeping the law, it's not about shame and honour, it's actually about oppressed or oppressed.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: The dominant idea that is going on with social media is about power imbalance and the crushing of the weak by the strong.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that's oversimplifying because obviously, as we might go on to talk about, there is more, there is actually, but a law-breaking paradigm is at play on social media uh because these players have broken the inviable law which is established by the gospel of grace.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so that the the Christian um uh care for the poor and the weak and the widow and the orphan has become so deep set in our psyche that whenever we see a nineteen minute ninety second video of that not being enacted in the way that we all insist it ought to be, therefore these players.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Are to be.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_03: But it's a very post-Christian sin.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: So think of your your ways of of describing in in terms of shame and honour versus sin and forgiveness versus oppressor-oppressed.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_03: Sociologists kind of talk about that in terms of first culture, second culture, third culture.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: And it's fascinating how like sociologists are just allergic to naming Christianity as the decisive influence that it's been.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: Second culture is Christianity.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: First culture is pre-Christian, you know, and third culture is sort of post-Christian.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: In the West, that is how first, second, and third have sort of come to us.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, a first a first culture pre-Christian or non-Christian worldview is very much shame and honor.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so think about the Good Samaritan at that stage.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: So there is the there is the guy beaten up by the side of the road.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: And the law that represented by the priest and the Levite, they walk on by on the other side.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: And a first culture person looks at that and says, no harm, no foul.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: Old Testament stipulations say that the priest had to keep himself clean, and he did no wrong.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: You can't show me an actual transgression.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: You can't show me an actual law that he's transgressed.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so no harm, no foul, jog on.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: And they do jog on, they pass on by.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: Then Jesus comes and says, Oh no, the Samaritan does the right thing because the Samaritan shows care.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: He lifts up the lowly and does something that um was very costly to him and takes him out of his routine and you know, and engages in the weak, the poor, the lowly to lift them up and does that sort of intervention.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: And that sort of frames a Christian society.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: I think in a post-Christian society, which is one way of describing our cultural moment, um, it's that gets sort of elevated into the place of, well, you better be that good Samaritan, or you're utter tyrant.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: And and so now, um, again, if you look at that one minute 49 seconds, no one broke any rule.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know, nowhere in the bullet points does it say make eye eye contact.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no one declined to sign the show.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they all did it, you know.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: And and so they but they're being held to a very messianic standard.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um Lionel Messi.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: Lionel Messi stands.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because he is the goat, he's the greatest of all time.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: There we go.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_03: And and so because they are not Jesus, they're being held to that.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: And they they should be more Christ-like.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, they should be more Christlike.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: But we're now living in a post-Christian society in which you are to be the Messiah, and if you're not, you are to be, you know, condemned and and piled upon and He's not the Messiah, therefore he's a very naughty boy.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: Unless you are the Messiah, um, you are to be cancelled.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and then if you are the Messiah, you are cancelled.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's the nuts.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: Either way, you're cancelled.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: But but it's a very post-Christian kind of response to things.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's yeah, and the oppressor-oppressed thing is putting words to that.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's kind of saying, you are you are to always um identify with the little guy.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: And to assume that she had a terrible day.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: You she couldn't possibly enjoyed herself.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, she needs to be told how oppressed she was, doesn't she?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: I hope her father explains to her that, you know.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: That those players are all actually awful people.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, it can go wrong uh with the whole match day mascot thing.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there are some wonderful examples of where it's um it's been an awful thing for a player to try to engage with a mascot.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a wonderful clip uh of Stephen Gerard uh playing for Liverpool against Chelsea.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is in the tunnel before the game, which I'm assuming must be at Stamford Bridge.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: So there's Stevie G coming down the steps, John Terry.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a little mascot there, chatting to Terry, he's got blue hair offers his putting out his left hand and then let's just watch that one again.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's so brilliant.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: So look at this, look at this.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Is a little ad turning the tables.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: There's big hero Stevie Gentin of Liverpool.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: And Magnanimous.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: Magnanimous, yeah, yeah.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: Love your enemies.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Very Christian.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_03: Very Christian.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Stephen Gerard puts out his hand.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Too late.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like that.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: And he See, that's the framing.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's the backstory to the Arsenal story.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, this is what happened.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: These footballers have been burned time and again by these monsters.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: But then actually, do you notice he gives him a little cheeky slap on the room?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well, would you would you call it a slap?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very like that.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he's got a card's face.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's a little cheeky slap.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: He knows he's been done there.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Play that at double speed, though.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: He knows he's been done.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, but you're right, yeah, but the be partly because the whole thing is so sort of sort of contrived.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: The storytelling of these mascots and and you know, all these great stories, right?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: Think of uh Finlay uh what was his name?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Finlay.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Finley, um who was whose hero was Jack Grealish.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: And Jack did the worm for him when he scored uh at the World Cup.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Fisher.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Finlay.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Fisher, yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't do the worm, Dave.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: He did his sort of weird arm thing.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because he couldn't do the worm.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Can't do the worm.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um do the worm.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um so then they've all been we've been told that this is what great heroes do.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: We have been told that for 2,000 years.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: And we've been we are insistent that people who are good at football also must be morally perfect.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so this heroes because they've got to be a hero in every sense.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: So they can't just be exceptional or or you know very, very good at one thing.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: We need them to broaden out into a fully orbed heroic model.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: And as we were saying before, as if they don't do that at this point, they're in serious trouble because we can't just have people who are good at kicking football.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, especially in a society that has no Jesus at the top of the society.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, politics becomes religion, and then sport and entertainment becomes political, and we put far too much weight on these people.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: I think uh like another thing going on here is kind of the balancing of nature and grace.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: So in in the gospel, you have nature and grace, you have Adam and Christ.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Adam the way things are, Christ the way things are meant to be, and he sort of redeems us and lifts us up.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I think within Christianity there is that union of nature and grace that Christ incarnates as the second Adam in order to raise us up.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: But not so as to lose our naturalness.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, He is incarnate and embodied, and he remains incarnate and embodied for forever.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so Christianity has this sort of union of word and flesh, of of of grace and nature.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I think as you depart from Christianity, I think we we find it ever more difficult to keep nature and grace together.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: And what we then have politically, I can I guess the right kind of goes a lot more to nature and the way things ought to be, and conserve the family and conserve the institutions.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: And the left goes a lot more towards grace, which let's give people better than they deserve, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: Let's let's be merciful, let's have the compassionate society, let's just be the good Samaritan constantly.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: And interestingly, you know, um Margaret Thatcher, very much a person of the of the right, um I'm doing I'm I'm doing the right here because I'm you know I'm doing it from their perspective.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I'm doing it from their perspective.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm you know.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: So Margaret Thatcher, very much a person of the right.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: I never pay attention to her hands, by the way, just to say that.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: It would be very distracting otherwise.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: Really not doing that.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: So uh she, very much a person of the right, was asked, you know, what do you do with the Good Samaritan?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: And she made an interesting point.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: She said, Well, the Good Samaritan had to be rich enough to pay the innkeeper, didn't he?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: He had to be a person of means, and he had to sort of invest in nature and be um a person of the institutions and organizations and a person of this world enough in order to do the gracious thing that the Good Samaritan is famous for.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so, again, in the story, nature and grace left and right are kind of um integrated.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think outside the story, we we just find it very difficult, and we look at you know 90 seconds of that video, and a lot of people, more on the left and progressives, sort of look at that 90 seconds, and they will they will say, No, there ought to it ought to have simply been the lifting up the lowly.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then a lot more sort of curmudgeonly folk who are probably not on Twitter anyway, yeah, just say, Well, they did their job, didn't they?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they're they're paid to kick a football, they're not paid to do this.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, what did they do wrong?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: And and the but there is a very strong sense in which I think some people might be thinking, this is really a non-story, right?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: And yet the story is in the framing, yes, and it is in the response, the reaction to the story is the story, and partly that that in and of itself is so um significant within our online culture, is to basically say that how everyone arranges themselves around a very small amount of information is telling you something.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and it is it's very it's revealing something about the kind of people that we are, the kind of people we've been created to be and what we're we ought to be living for.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so even something like this, which is a non-story, because you will find countless examples, you could edit together countless examples, of thousands of people going about their daily life and apparently not going above and beyond to give every single person the unique, wonderful experience that they ought to have as an image bearer, right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it in one sense it's a nothing story, and yet in that nothing story, we are able to still see the story of the world in which we are in Adam and yet we are redeemed through Christ.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it it it frames everything, and we need we need we need better than the Knowles perspective.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: TV's Nick Knowles is I'm sure he's got lots of great opinions on all sorts of things.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: Very talented man.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: But let's not look through the eyes of TV's Nick Knowles.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: And may maybe let's not like bother with having so many opinions.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like honestly, who cares?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: In so many ways.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: But but Twitter especially forces you to make the announcement, you know, to have your own miniature press conference.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: So where do you come down on the question of the Arsenal mascot?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I wonder whether Piers Morgan, as someone who was an Arsenal fan and famously so, felt he needed to weigh in on the Arsenal mascot question.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_03: But it's not just him, but like we all feel like we've like we're making this video, we feel like we it needs to be commented on, and you need and you need to align yourself because that's that's how you're a goodie or a baddie, right?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: And and as soon as there's a critical mass behind the 6,400 quote tweets, yeah.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's very clear what side you're meant to align on.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_03: It becomes incredibly difficult to go in the other direction, which is why it's it's kind of like amazing that the father sort of got on and said, she had a good day.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: I bet that yeah, it it probably hasn't been a great day now.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'm sure.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: It feels like the whole thing's been ruined.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we hope she did have uh a lovely day.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we hope she continues to have lovely days, and we hope, well, I don't know, I don't know what you think.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, do you want Arsenal to win the league?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's maybe not after that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um maybe you think it ought to be those those lowly players for Manchester City.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um these uh these are significant issues because through these things we can see Christ.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it is uh Christ for whom we uh exist at Speak Life.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh, if you would like to subscribe to this channel, uh you can continue to get content about um all of life um through the eyes of Jesus.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: And you should also subscribe to the Reformed Mythologists channel, which is Nate's channel, where you see through stories to see the nature of all things.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Movies, mythology, the messiah, and music videos and much more.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: So do check those out as well.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we will catch you again sometime soon.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: Take care.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_04: See ya.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: Bye-bye.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there we go.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's all from the Speak Life podcast this week.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh thank you so much for listening.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your attendance, that's not the right word, is it?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Listenership is much appreciated.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh to draw your attention again to the upcoming Speak Life House party.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it will happen on the 4th of May, Star Wars Day, May the 4th.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've got to say it.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: The the American Order, haven't you?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Month uh then day uh for the the May the 4th uh joke to come across.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that will be at 8 pm, May the 4th, uh with Glenn and Nate, and it will be a Zoom call, uh, an actually interesting Zoom call.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a guest to be confirmed very soon, and uh it's just gonna be a great time, great opportunity to interact with the Speak Life team and other Speak Life supporters.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: There'll be some games, we'll definitely be having some Star Wars references, so stay tuned for those.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you do need to sign up in order to get the Zoom link, so you can do that now.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash how house speaklife.org.uk forward slash houseparty and click sign up, and you'll just uh fill in a little very brief form, takes 30 seconds.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Give us your email address, and then we can send you the zoom link, and you will need that, of course, to actually join the the call when the time comes.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: We've done two of these so far and they've been really successful actually, just really encouraging opportunity for all of us to stand shoulder to shoulder and look together at who Jesus is and what he's been doing through Speak Life and what some encouragements have been and what the plans are for the future.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hope you will join us for that.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's all from me this week.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: God bless, and we will see you next time.