Latest / Head Shrink Inc. / Guest interview: Petty Christian memes
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_02: Hey guys, Dr.
- 0:01SPEAKER_02: David here.
- 0:02SPEAKER_02: We have another guest that we're going to talk to this week.
- 0:05SPEAKER_02: Listen in.
- 0:20SPEAKER_00: Daily lively.
- 0:24SPEAKER_02: Hey all.
- 0:25SPEAKER_02: Welcome to day 6300 of the coronavirus lockdown.
- 0:32SPEAKER_02: I was telling uh people on an Instagram post that I have that if you've been living in a cave recently, you should probably just stay living in the cave because 2020 has been a weird year so far.
- 0:46SPEAKER_02: So maybe come out in a couple months and things may have died down.
- 0:51SPEAKER_02: I am continuing on with interviewing people that I interact with in my life and people that I think are interesting to interact with.
- 1:01SPEAKER_02: And so today I have a guest on.
- 1:05SPEAKER_02: He well, I don't wanna I don't wanna pigeonhole you into like that you're you only do this one thing, but how I met this guy was uh actually through my kids, believe it or not.
- 1:21SPEAKER_02: And uh my my nephews and my son um told me about this meme page and uh the meme page was called uh Petty Christian Memes, which is kind of a it's a funny name.
- 1:35SPEAKER_02: Um and so then I started following on Instagram, and then I just started kind of interacting.
- 1:42SPEAKER_02: I'm a I'm a newbie memer, and I think that is that even a thing?
- 1:47SPEAKER_02: A newbie memer?
- 1:49SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
- 1:50SPEAKER_02: And and and you are a pro memer.
- 1:56SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
- 1:57SPEAKER_01: I guess to some people I would be, to other people I would not be.
- 2:01SPEAKER_02: So, okay, so this is my guess.
- 2:03SPEAKER_02: So why don't you introduce yourself?
- 2:05SPEAKER_02: Tell me, tell us a little bit about yourself.
- 2:07SPEAKER_02: I and we've gone back and forth on what we should call you, so I'll let you I'll let you take it away.
- 2:12SPEAKER_02: Tell me who you are and what you do.
- 2:15SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm Petty Christian Memes.
- 2:17SPEAKER_01: Uh, my first name is Jason.
- 2:19SPEAKER_01: I am a uh white middle-aged dude from Phoenix, Arizona.
- 2:24SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm uh my my day job is I'm a claims adjuster, and uh I also lead worship on weekends at a small church here in Arizona.
- 2:34SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, my alter ego is petty Christian memes, and uh that's kind of where I vent and I poke fun at different things, and I stand up for causes that I believe in and have conversations with people, and uh just a really neat kind of online space where I talk to people from all over the nation and all over the world.
- 2:56SPEAKER_02: Okay, I it's I like that you use the word vent.
- 3:00SPEAKER_02: How how how do I know when you're venting?
- 3:05SPEAKER_01: Well, it started uh as a place to vent.
- 3:08SPEAKER_01: It started, I started the meme page really when I was um in a place where I was really frustrated with my church at the time, and um I didn't really have an outlet, and I didn't know you know, everybody everybody who was my friend went to the church.
- 3:29SPEAKER_01: So it was kind of it was hard for me at in the moment to to process the feelings I was feeling.
- 3:34SPEAKER_01: And I'll you know, I'm not gonna like there are great people, great church, and a lot of those issues were within myself, but I just wanted a way to kind of like how do I process through these feelings and and things like that.
- 3:48SPEAKER_01: And so my brother, epic Christian memes, very large meme page, he's been doing it much longer than I have.
- 3:56SPEAKER_01: He was running this meme page, and I was following it, and I was seeing these funny things, and he would poke fun at Christendom and poke fun at church culture, and I started sending him memes that I was making, and he would post them, but he wouldn't give me any credit.
- 4:10SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Okay, well, wait a minute.
- 4:14SPEAKER_02: Like, I made that, like that got you know, what a brother move, what a brother sibling move.
- 4:20SPEAKER_01: So I said, I I I messaged him and I was like, Well, I'm gonna start my own meme page, and he's like, Yeah, dude, do it.
- 4:26SPEAKER_01: And so I did, and he really helped me along in the beginning.
- 4:30SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh, but yeah, that's really how it started, just kind of being frustrated with with you know church in the moment anyway, and uh now it's just growing to something much, much bigger.
- 4:40SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's uh that's a cool story.
- 4:42SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, so for those that are listening to this that don't uh I'm I'm assuming most people know what memes are, right?
- 4:51SPEAKER_02: M-E-M-E.
- 4:52SPEAKER_02: It's not meme, it's meme.
- 4:56SPEAKER_02: And um what how do you explain what a meme is?
- 5:01SPEAKER_01: So to me, a meme is like you're you're taking like a picture and you're putting words on a picture, but usually the picture doesn't have much to do with the words you're you're putting on, right?
- 5:17SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 5:17SPEAKER_01: So um and you're but you're you're expressing an idea or a or a truth, or I think like the the technical term meme has to do with like you're you're you're saying something about an idea about culture, and either you're making a statement or you're making fun of it or you're laughing at it or whatever.
- 5:36SPEAKER_01: But that's really what you're doing with memes, is you're you're kind of making a joke.
- 5:40SPEAKER_01: It's it's almost like a a new way of doing like political cartoons, you know, which were really popular like in the 80s.
- 5:48SPEAKER_02: Right.
- 5:48SPEAKER_02: I was I was trying to think of an analogy where like the Babylon B, most people know what the Babylon B is, does like um full course meals, and maybe memes are like bite-sized chunks of some truth, right?
- 6:03SPEAKER_02: And or satire or whatever.
- 6:06SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting, I mean, you see meme pages all over the place, and I think that's how like for me personally, it's hard for me because I because my Instagram page is more um psychology-based.
- 6:17SPEAKER_02: I try to keep it that way, but there are times when I just think, oh man, there's some like uh political content that I want to do.
- 6:25SPEAKER_02: So I have a friend uh that his his meme page is Red Pill Mafia, and he's a he's anonymous.
- 6:33SPEAKER_02: I know who he is, and so I send him my political memes.
- 6:37SPEAKER_02: Nice, he'll post those.
- 6:39SPEAKER_02: So I have an outlet, and then free and then like the Bible memes, that's where I've sent you a couple.
- 6:44SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, so I it's it is so satisfying.
- 6:49SPEAKER_02: I don't know, is it satisfying to you when when you that's like a big part of it, I think, for me, is that I can speak out some kind of truth that's like outrageous, and it's just so satisfying, especially when someone like you get tons of comments and and uh uh uh a variety of probably uh DMs that come in to and people like calling you outrageous.
- 7:15SPEAKER_02: I know you post them occasionally.
- 7:18SPEAKER_02: Um what do you think?
- 7:21SPEAKER_02: I think you're I think epic memes, they're they have a they have like this one kind of meme theme that gets the most outrage, and I think it's butthole, right?
- 7:33SPEAKER_02: Or is that you?
- 7:35SPEAKER_01: The Taco Bell butthole memes, yeah.
- 7:37SPEAKER_01: That's that's my brother.
- 7:40SPEAKER_02: Do you do you have a do you have a meme that causes more outrage than others?
- 7:47SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh there's three really that I find um really do it.
- 7:52SPEAKER_01: Uh if I post about female pastors, if I post about the use of alcohol, and then lately um I've been partnering with a group that's uh pro-life.
- 8:04SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're called lifelife.org.
- 8:07SPEAKER_01: And those when I when I do a post for them, uh it gets a ton of likes, and it gets like the one I posted today, probably has almost 600 comments already.
- 8:18SPEAKER_01: Say the same thing I think you cut out when uhctionorg is the name of the Instagram page.
- 8:24SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
- 8:25SPEAKER_02: I saw that I saw that one today.
- 8:27SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I saw it today.
- 8:29SPEAKER_02: And um it is it's funny what riles people up.
- 8:33SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 8:34SPEAKER_01: Yeah, crazy.
- 8:37SPEAKER_02: So I grew up in church, and so I I come from a tradition that's not um that doesn't do the women pastor thing.
- 8:46SPEAKER_02: Um and so when I've seen you post that and then I see p I see the comments like poo-pooing it, yeah.
- 8:53SPEAKER_02: Um it's it's funny.
- 8:56SPEAKER_02: I mean people just set themselves up to be mocked.
- 9:02SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I don't under it.
- 9:04SPEAKER_02: Just it's funny.
- 9:05SPEAKER_02: And I think the the biggest thing, especially with like current events going on, is that I think there is such a range of ideas that this really shows you that some people have no ability to disagree well.
- 9:18SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
- 9:20SPEAKER_02: And so does that is that ever depressing, or do you just kind of not take it serious and kind of keep meme away?
- 9:29SPEAKER_01: So I think it at first, and I I really tried to have um like civil conversations in the comments and in the DMs and stuff.
- 9:42SPEAKER_01: And most people just don't want to do that.
- 9:44SPEAKER_01: Like they just want to get on and spout and argue.
- 9:47SPEAKER_01: Like people, there's a lot of trolls, you know, like they just get on there and they they want to stir up controversy.
- 9:53SPEAKER_01: And um I think at first I tried, you know, to talk to some of them, have a rational conversation, but most people don't want to do that.
- 10:00SPEAKER_01: So now I just kind of troll them back, and that's what you see like in my stories.
- 10:04SPEAKER_01: Like, I'll take screenshots of of what they're posting in the comments and my replies, and then I'll post those in my stories just to get so people can see how just is sometimes.
- 10:15SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, people don't know how to disagree.
- 10:18SPEAKER_01: Most people don't know how to have a civil conversation and an exchange of ideas, and this is what I believe, okay, and this is what I believe, and and have a respectful conversation.
- 10:28SPEAKER_01: It doesn't happen very often.
- 10:30SPEAKER_02: Has there um so and uh uh how long have you been doing this, Paige?
- 10:35SPEAKER_01: Would you say uh a little over three years?
- 10:37SPEAKER_02: Okay.
- 10:38SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a little over three years.
- 10:39SPEAKER_02: Has there ever I'm this is a huge, you know, I'm talking about three years here.
- 10:44SPEAKER_02: Has there ever been a time when you has there have you ever taken a meme down?
- 10:51SPEAKER_02: Because you thought, okay, uh that uh I rethought that and uh yes, uh I took one down right after uh the Black Square Tuesday day.
- 11:06SPEAKER_01: Okay uh Wednesday, I posted one, and I thought in my mind, from my you know perspective that it wasn't offensive and that it promoted what Black Square Tuesday was all about and everything, but I got a lot of feedback from people in the comments that it was um offensive to them, people of color, black people were like, no, I don't like this.
- 11:35SPEAKER_01: And then I have a really good friend, he he's half of memes for Jesus, and he's uh he's a dude of color too, and and he DM'd me and he was like, bro, wrong timing for that one.
- 11:46SPEAKER_01: And I was like, All right, I'll take it down.
- 11:49SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I took it, kind of posted uh some an apology in my story, and I think that's the only time I can remember ever taking one down because of I just uh I was tone deaf to the moment or whatever.
- 12:01SPEAKER_02: Okay.
- 12:02SPEAKER_02: And now I'm and now I'm gonna be curious.
- 12:04SPEAKER_02: You have to send me uh send that to my DM so I can see what it was.
- 12:07SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and again, I didn't think it was I thought it it actually had a black guy in it and was kind of just making fun of like all of 2020 and and everything, like murder hornets and covet and riots and things like that.
- 12:19SPEAKER_01: But I guess just because everybody's um emotions were still so fresh over George Floyd, um it just was it was just really bad timing.
- 12:29SPEAKER_01: Wasn't a bad meme, wasn't like making fun of any race at all.
- 12:33SPEAKER_01: It's making fun of 2020, but it was just bad timing.
- 12:36SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 12:37SPEAKER_02: All right, so um I have uh so I have friends, like I'm friends with my senior pastor and um with our associate pastor.
- 12:48SPEAKER_02: And I how is it difficult?
- 12:51SPEAKER_02: Like, cause I I think the people that make memes are are actually like pretty opinionated people, and and they a meme is kind of like a passive aggressive way to share to share your opinion, which is I'm like I'm I I'm a I can proudly admit that I am passive aggressive.
- 13:13SPEAKER_02: Um it wasn't I it wasn't good for me when I was younger, but now as a an adult, I can use it as a uh superpower, and it's great.
- 13:23SPEAKER_02: Social media is where it shines through the best with strangers, it's great.
- 13:28SPEAKER_02: And so do you find it difficult?
- 13:33SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm assuming that you have social media, right?
- 13:38SPEAKER_02: And you see like a variety of opinions and stuff on social media.
- 13:43SPEAKER_02: Is it hard to not want to just blast some people on social media?
- 13:49SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, honestly, by my personal social media accounts are very small.
- 13:56SPEAKER_01: You know, they're just my friends.
- 13:58SPEAKER_01: Most people don't know most of my friends know I'm petty Christian memes, but most people in the petty Christian meme world don't know who I am personally.
- 14:06SPEAKER_01: So um I largely stay out of, I'm pretty apolitical.
- 14:11SPEAKER_01: I largely stay out of those discussions on Facebook and Instagram.
- 14:15SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I I kind of have the the platform of petty to say whatever I want.
- 14:22SPEAKER_01: And it's, you know, largely anonymous, which is kind of nice as well.
- 14:27SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, on a on a personal level, I I really just I don't really get into it.
- 14:32SPEAKER_01: I'll look at it and I'll laugh, and my wife and I will like, oh, did you see what so-and-so posted today?
- 14:36SPEAKER_01: Ha ha ha, you know, this person we've known for X amount of years, and that was really funny, or that was so typical of them, so right wing or so left wing or whatever.
- 14:46SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, I largely stay out of it.
- 14:49SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
- 14:49SPEAKER_02: Good for you.
- 14:50SPEAKER_02: I I applaud you for that because man, I've had to unf I'd actually had to unfollow some people that it was like literally creating uh tension in me because every like two hours posting something negative, every two hours posting something about BLM or how cops are this way or defund police, and and I used to be a police officer way back when, and so I I I think I'm much more libertarian now, and so I do have strong views on like that.
- 15:22SPEAKER_02: I do think police will do overstep their boundaries sometimes, but I I mean I think there's a way to address it, and so I I've had to unfollow people because it's just it does no uh commenting.
- 15:34SPEAKER_02: I found that commenting on Facebook does not change people's minds.
- 15:37SPEAKER_02: Yeah, unless you there is that rare occasion which I've had a couple of times like yesterday at least, um, I commenting with like interacting with a stranger that I didn't know, and they're so reasonable.
- 15:49SPEAKER_02: And when someone's reasonable back, when you're trying to be reasonable to them, it's it's very refreshing, actually.
- 15:56SPEAKER_02: Um but it's super rare in my experience.
- 16:01SPEAKER_02: Um so steer let's steer away from memes for a minute.
- 16:06SPEAKER_02: Like with all that's kind of going on culturally, and when I say um BLM, George Floyd's death, um systemic racism, prejudice, all of the above.
- 16:18SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you got a chance to listen to my my last podcast with a with a good friend of mine.
- 16:24SPEAKER_02: Um I mean he he pretty much defined it for me that you know racism often is about this power and prejudice is just about kind of daily living.
- 16:37SPEAKER_02: Now I'm I'm totally paraphrasing there, and so I'm curious your thoughts um as you interact with uh people on the meme page, or you interact with people that you go to church with.
- 16:50SPEAKER_02: What's your thoughts on uh what's what current what's going on with current events?
- 16:55SPEAKER_02: And I'm not trying to like put you in a corner and trap you, I'm just kind of curious.
- 16:59SPEAKER_02: Uh sure uh pastor.
- 17:03SPEAKER_01: Um the the meme page has given me this like pretty neat perspective to get to hear and see a lot of different aspects to the same issue.
- 17:15SPEAKER_01: And you know, because people will DM me and people will comment at me and and we'll have conversations sometimes, and then everybody has their own lens and their own perspective that they're seeing things from.
- 17:26SPEAKER_01: Um, my own personal is that I grew up in Hawaii and uh moved there when I was five, and uh white people there, they're called Howleys, are there there's a lot of prejudice against them, especially like when you're growing up there and going to school.
- 17:44SPEAKER_01: It gets better as time goes on, but I have really vivid memories of being young and people stopping and stopping their car in the middle of the street and yelling at me and my mom and telling telling us F and Howley go home, and and then as I got older, just getting my butt kicked regularly for having white skin and getting jumped at the park and things like that.
- 18:05SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like just me personally, just my lens, I have I have my own lens that I'm kind of looking at BLM through.
- 18:14SPEAKER_01: And maybe I'm a little bit more sympathetic to, you know, I was getting just to kind of give you a different perspective, I was getting a lot of younger teenage kids DMing me, like, why are you pro BLM?
- 18:28SPEAKER_01: Why are you pro uh, you know, George Floyd and all this stuff?
- 18:32SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know, these people have they, if you do your some homework, they've been under pression, you know, starting with slavery and then redlining and systemic racism, and it just kind of went whoosh, like they they'd never heard of it.
- 18:48SPEAKER_01: They had never like been taught that by their parents or anyone.
- 18:52SPEAKER_01: Like it was the first time they were kind of hearing about it.
- 18:55SPEAKER_01: And so I guess for me, like it just kind of helped really helps me understand that everybody's got a unique and discrete perspective to the issue.
- 19:06SPEAKER_01: And us getting up, like you said, getting up on Facebook and just yelling at each other in the comments doesn't really bring any light to the situation, it just brings heat, you know, do much good.
- 19:17SPEAKER_01: But if you can't have a civil conversation, like like you had an amazing podcast on your last one with your friend, um, I really enjoyed hearing his perspective.
- 19:27SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed, you know, it was it was eye-opening to me to hear that when he goes on vacation, he has to think about is my family going to be received there?
- 19:37SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 19:37SPEAKER_01: Or do they not like black people there?
- 19:39SPEAKER_01: I never have to worry about that as a white person.
- 19:42SPEAKER_01: You know?
- 19:43SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were places in Hawaii I didn't go because I was white.
- 19:46SPEAKER_01: I didn't go alone, but you know, they were few and far between, and I knew where they were.
- 19:51SPEAKER_01: But, you know, for your friend, it's a totally different situation.
- 19:55SPEAKER_02: Right.
- 19:56SPEAKER_02: I think the I think part of the problem is, you know, and so that's so people define that as white privilege, the fact that you don't have to worry about where you're going.
- 20:08SPEAKER_02: Um, and I and I think I wish people wouldn't like people, I I think white people when they hear privilege think, I'm not privileged, right?
- 20:16SPEAKER_02: They immediately go to that place of like, well, I grew up poor, I grew up whatever.
- 20:20SPEAKER_02: And so I wish there was a different, I wish you could call it something different that wouldn't be so cause a reaction in people.
- 20:26SPEAKER_02: It's like this the idea when you hear defund police.
- 20:30SPEAKER_02: When I first heard that, I thought, how in the world are you going to just get rid of police?
- 20:36SPEAKER_02: Like, that makes no sense.
- 20:39SPEAKER_02: But then as I like looked into it, we're like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
- 20:43SPEAKER_02: Like taking police out of uh schools, for example, and replacing them with more mental health workers or um requiring certain things of police departments.
- 20:57SPEAKER_02: And and I mean, I I'm I think most people can get behind that.
- 21:00SPEAKER_02: I just think it's this phrase of defund police that like kind of starts everyone's engines and they then they just can't think straight.
- 21:10SPEAKER_02: It's even like BLM, right?
- 21:12SPEAKER_02: So I I posted a meme that said, you know, BLM as a fact, like the lives are important, but BLM as an organization is very socialistic and wants to tear down um tear down things.
- 21:26SPEAKER_02: Like if you look at their platform, and now it's coming out that BLM as an organization, if you give money to them, you're you're basically directing directly giving money to the DNC.
- 21:37SPEAKER_02: And so it's I think a lot of this word stuff that goes on is uh creates these different things and these different ways that people think about, I think.
- 21:49SPEAKER_02: I mean that's my perspective on it, unfortunately.
- 21:52SPEAKER_02: Um where can where can people find you?
- 21:59SPEAKER_02: Not like physically your location, but where where can people find you on the web?
- 22:05SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, so Instagram uh and Facebook, Petty Christian Memes.
- 22:09SPEAKER_01: Um just type that into the search browser.
- 22:12SPEAKER_01: And uh I I have a Twitter unreleased like it's almost the same name.
- 22:17SPEAKER_01: It's like Petty Christian Christian is spelled like X-I-A-N or something like that, but I never use it.
- 22:23SPEAKER_01: I I really despise Twitter.
- 22:25SPEAKER_02: So you'll care about Christ?
- 22:26SPEAKER_02: Why would you leave Christ out of it?
- 22:28SPEAKER_02: Why use box?
- 22:30SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
- 22:31SPEAKER_02: That's like that's like the the Karen saying Xmas you can't use XMyth.
- 22:35SPEAKER_01: You have to use Xmas right Chris Christmas.
- 22:40SPEAKER_02: Well let me I'm curious.
- 22:42SPEAKER_02: Um where do you get uh ideas for memes?
- 22:46SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes I'll just be like thinking of a situation at church or in my life or something like that and it'll just pop into my head oh this will make a funny meme and I'll write it down.
- 23:00SPEAKER_01: I usually have like a short list of kind of ideas.
- 23:04SPEAKER_01: But more important than not uh I make my memes early in the morning as soon as I wake up I just grab my phone I start scrolling through some pictures and I just kind of in that almost half awake half asleep state um that's when the ideas just kind of start to flow.
- 23:20SPEAKER_01: Epic makes memes in advance he has like any at any given time like 40 to 70 memes in like this album and he just and then he'll make them like at massive blocks at a time and I've tried that and it doesn't really work well for me.
- 23:36SPEAKER_01: So I like to just make them up on the spot.
- 23:39SPEAKER_02: I'm just so curious what what each of your wives think about about this my wife uh not super happy about time I spend on my phone doing it um but now that it's become somewhat of a small business she tolerates it a little better.
- 24:02SPEAKER_02: Okay so and that it's been good that's right what do you think is paying for all this stuff woman get off my case exactly okay um yeah so when so I wonder uh at what point like when you get up to like 500,000 then hopefully she'll apologize and say please forgive me for you know all my poo-pooing of you all these years oh right yeah I I kind of doubt that'll ever happen.
- 24:33SPEAKER_02: But that would be a good meme though maybe I'll make that one I give me credit give me the credit for that one for for sure it'll be a collab okay hey thanks for uh coming on I want to try to get you on here with your brother uh at some future date um so we can hear funny brother stories um about about growing up in Hawaii and all that stuff um but hey yeah thanks again and uh people go check out petty Christian memes and leave some comments and uh we will talk to you next time thanks for coming on thank you bye hey guys thanks for listening have a great weekend if you have any questions or comments go to docdavid.net or uh leave some comments on this podcast have a great day