For me it has to be the Berlin live episode and in top spot the live DnD episode, which I literally had to turn off after about 15 mins because it was too embarrassing. I can't imagine what being in the audience must have been like, lmao

(Obviously the true leftist answer is all of them)

  • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Matt Taibi in the height of the George Floyd and Covid struggle going “actually calling for the abolishing of police is bad for the left”

  • supdog [e/em/eir,ey/em]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I hate those cliquish episodes where they have some NY comedian or podcaster I never heard of and they're joking about people they known that I don't.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      I'm really not a fan of the interview episodes in general, especially the cliquish ones though. I think the only slightly interesting ones are with people with, or who have had, actual power, and there's probably like, one or two good-ish interviews with an author. But I'm a very non-movie person and so any of those interviews, even with "celebrities", are incredibly boring. What inevitably happens is that they have to lib down their views, which isn't automatically bad (you don't wanna be confrontational all the time, life isn't a Twitter or Reddit thread) but it does really make me wonder what their true convictions are. But yeah, I skip all the interview episodes now. At least the movie episodes have some good riffs in them, even if the movies are terrible and I'll never watch them.

      The other ones that really grate me are the doomer-y episodes; it really viscerally reminds me that I'm hearing about events through the perspective of relatively well-off New York podcasters and not really any coherent, broad, socialist viewpoint, regardless of what they actually individually believe. Matt is the least bad about this but even he suffers from it - and I think he'd be the first to admit that he has a big bias due to his current socioeconomic situation. I don't go to Chapo for leftist analysis, I'm perfectly aware it's an entertainment podcast, but hearing "Man, shit's terrible. This was another light-hearted episode, right guys? deflated laugh" for the hundredth time really grinds my gears.

    • gueybana [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Is that the one where they said not all cops are bad, minorities actually need cops, and 'abolishing' the police is actually helping reactionaries?

      I went from being a regular listener to only turning CTH on once in a blue moon.

    • Shitbird [any]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      wut wz bad abt et (hav nt listnd)

        • Heaven_and_Earth [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          who are likewise largely talentless hacks who rely on people sending them money every month to keep making replaceable jokes at one another for an hour or two every week

          Someone is bitter from Chapo's success, lol

          • gueybana [any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            These are rich podcasters who grew up in Manhattan and Lake Forest, Illinois, two of the wealthiest areas in the entire world. You don't need to white knight them.

            • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
              ·
              edit-2
              2 years ago

              Didn't :matt-jokerfied: work at like a bookstore while also on disability or something

              He lucked out by having the right internet friends, lol

            • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Lake forest is one of the laziest names ever, right up there with basically every medium sized place in Illinois. Oak park, oak forest, oak lawn, oak brook, rock island, Plainfield, crystal lake, galena, Springfield. All these places are just named for what is there in plain english. At least Galesburg mixes it up with some German.

          • silent_water [she/her]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I'd be bitter if they accomplished much more than a twitter patreon following. money + followers isn't success.

            • Heaven_and_Earth [she/her]
              ·
              edit-2
              2 years ago

              Are you bourgeois? I don't know any other perspective that would say money isn't success

              • BolsheWitch [she/her, they/them]
                ·
                2 years ago

                Are you bourgeois? I don’t know any other perspective that would say money isn’t success

                imagine posting this on a socialist website

                • Heaven_and_Earth [she/her]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  From what I've seen, it's mostly rich people who say that sort of thing :vivian-shrug:

                  Also it's not anti-socialist to pursue wealth :deng-cowboy:

              • silent_water [she/her]
                ·
                2 years ago

                bitch, I'm not saying money isn't valuable. I'm saying wealth isn't something to aspire to for its own sake. money isn't a moral good. the liberal brainworms are eating you alive. recognize them and fucking devour them first.

          • MC_Kublai [none/use name]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            I mean I enjoy putting on the dry boys once in a while but that is literally what they do lmao, implying this was said out of bitterness is kicked in the head by a donkey levels of stupidity

    • bigboopballs [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Matt Taibbi

      I've always hated that guy. He always gave me weird vibes when he was on Majority Report or whatever the fuck.

      • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        He literally wrote a book explaining how fucked up the police were during the Eric Gardner public execution. And how deep the corruption goes. But guess calling for abolition of that force is a step too far

  • star_wraith [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    That Berlin episode was so bad. They reverted to making cringey jokes about Germans that boomers thought were funny in like 1994.

    Safdie brothers interview (Uncut Gems) is a close second for me. Doing that during the absolute zenith of the Bernie's primary run was a real odd choice.

    Not a whole episode, but one segment that made stop listening to them for months was when Amber was fawning over conservative commentator Kim Klassik (sp?). Made me realize Amber will make excuses for anyone who hates liberals too, even if they're reactionary as fuck.

        • CrimsonDynamo [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I do listen to them on occasion. I really like them, but I always go away with a deeper dread.

      • Tiocfaidhcaisarla [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        For a similar vibe, Pod Damn America are 3 comedians who cover recent things, while often bringing up they know they're dumb, and more frequently than chapo have a guest on who knows what they're talking about. It's mostly riffing about current events and then pivoting to a deeper dive they do themselves or with guests. So kind of chapo-esque but less shit takes and some amount of effort to put out something funny and informative, though not like citations needed or blowback.

    • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I listen to several better podcasts but I also listen to worse podcasts, so unless you have like 7 better podcasts that I’m not already listening to I will continue consuming that garbage

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    That one episode where Will and Amber talk about the 1619 project and call being a cop a "normal middle class job." I thought I fell through a hole and landed in a universe where chapo is somehow even more lib.

    • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      That was the one where I stopped listening. Mind you this was in the middle of the protest surge and that’s what they chose to focus on. Felt gross even listening

      • gueybana [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Oh shit I completely forgot they were doing this shit in the middle of the riots. Yeah, fuck them for that one.

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      I never listened very steadily, but I heard some of the best known eps when the old sub was still around.

      I think that a Biden win (among other things) is the worst thing that could have happened, but since shitty things have started happening in rapid succession after Brandon gave us an 18 month "break" I'd heard that some of their newer content was actually pretty decent. I checked out a few recent episodes in the last week weeks and I'd say they're worth a listen. Hopefully the trend keeps up.

  • CrimsonDynamo [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I hate their movie reviews. The world is on fire and you want to talk about Face/Off for an hour and a half?

    I also hate when they "hate watch" something and then spend forever talking about it. It's like "motherfucker, I spend a good deal of time avoiding these things and you guys are one of the few sources of entertainment that isn't endless trash, could you please just stick to current events?"

    • ChestRockwell [comrade/them, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Maybe it's just my MST3K mindset but I totally disagree. Watching terrible movies is great entertainment, plus in something like assassin 33 AD you can better know the enemy.

      Maybe I just like film crit/commentary tho

      • CrimsonDynamo [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I can dig MST3K but I'm not interested in a review of that Viking movie that just came out. There are plenty of other podcasts that do that

        • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I like when they review movies they hate, I hate when they review movies they liked because I always disagree with them. Except for Avatar, that one’s good. The Top Gun episode was exhausting.

          • CrimsonDynamo [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I could see it being its own show or something, but it's like opening a box of cookies and discovering it's been replaced with celery when I see "new Chapo episode" then read the description and it's a whole episode where they dunk on Avengers 1,937,362

        • Cowboyitis69 [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          I watched the first 20 min of the Northman and it was ass. That scene where the main character is screaming near the bonfire literally reminded me of :frothingfash:

          • CrimsonDynamo [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I can't imagine any part of it being good. Movies have such a dumb wink wink nudge nudge underlying theme that's about as deep as an eighth grade philosophy class.

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I also hate when they “hate watch” something and then spend forever talking about it. It’s like “motherfucker, I spend a good deal of time avoiding these things and you guys are one of the few sources of entertainment that isn’t endless trash, could you please just stick to current events?”

      This is a core part of the chaposphere (including here) that I really dislike as well.

      • CrimsonDynamo [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I just don't get it. It amounts to "have you heard of this stupid lib movie/capeshit/whitewash of history play? It's so awful! Well, we watched it, and here are all of the details".

        I don't give a rats ass about wonder woman. I don't want to hear about it. I don't even want to hear about why it's bad. I don't want to know trivial details about why a movie is bad. I don't want to waste bandwidth on it.

        I have a 40 minute commute. There are three podcasts I like. They all seem to hit on the same day, so if there's a bad episode, I have jack shit to listen to for most of the week.

        Sports?!? Fucking SPORTS was the subject of the last Chapo episode? You mean the thing that's fucking everywhere? It's on my soda can. It's on every billboard. It's every commercial. It's all people talk about in public. Fuck!

          • CrimsonDynamo [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            Ok. I guess I want to listen to a better show then.

            I've noticed something in leftist spaces. When it's time to lay the cards down, everyone always takes on this "...but what do I know? Don't listen to me. It's just jokes." thing.

            Where's the serious part of the movement?

            • Cowboyitis69 [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              2 years ago

              The only people taking it seriously are the ones who don’t get paid to talk. The organizers who start unions, god bless em. Talking to coworkers and getting them all to agree and work on a shared project sounds downright impossible. Idk how anyone does it

  • eatmyass
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      That really encompasses everything I've disliked about the podcast over the years. The solid episodes (of which there are a good handful) are the ones where they avoid doing this.

    • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Lol I had a (well-meaning lib) friend recently discover the Yang interview through the Chapo YT channel and I had to deal with a flurry of unhinged messages about how Yang seemed like a well-meaning guy and it was amazing how he "held his own" :virgil-phone:

      • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Exactly. Like you get a huge candidate and just throw him complete softballs for an hour and a half. Embarrassing

        • ssjmarx [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          To be fair, they are heavily incentivized by the media environment to do exactly this, since if they go hard on him they will never get another interview like that ever again.

          • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            This is such a lib take. I heard the same thing while it was happening. If you’re not going to go hard then don’t do the interview

          • spectre [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I think the options are something like this:

            1. Have a podcast, do boring interviews sometimes.
            2. Have a podcast, dunk on public figures all the time, and just blow off interviewing them cause they won't call you. If you do 2., don't revert to 1. which is lame af.
            3. Have a podcast and build a following by being "challenging but fair" as an interview, which is hard coming from the socialist left cause who would want to be "fair" to these ghouls. It would be an interesting project, but incredibly difficult until the "left" actually grows in size and coalesces better than with the Bernie campaigns (could be several years till that happens). Chapo is definitely not this and I wouldn't expect them to be.