[theme music]
ANNOUNCER: Coming to you from New
York City, the only city in America, it's The Daily Show.
Tonight, chat bots are talking, the history of drag,
and Tressie McMillan Cottom.
This is The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
[cheering]
What's going on, everybody? Welcome to The Daily Show.
I'm Trevor Noah.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Thank you for coming out in person.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you so much for being here.
Take a seat, everybody.
We have got a great show for you tonight.
Donald Trump is now beefing with the Constitution.
Dulcé Sloan gets into drag.
And artificial intelligence could replace us all.
Or has it already?
So let's do this, people.
Let's jump straight into today's headlines.
[cheering]
All right.
Before we get into the big stories,
let's catch up on a few other things going on in the world,
starting with the World Cup.
On Saturday, the world's biggest sporting event
kicked off the round of 16 with the Netherlands scoring yet
another victory and the United States
learning firsthand why they call it the knockout stages.
And this was especially humiliating for the US
because the Dutch team plays in those little, wooden
shoes, so--
but don't be sad.
Don't be sad.
The good news for America is the next World
Cup will be in the US.
Yeah.
[cheering]
Which means-- which means all the players
will be allowed to use guns.
Yeah.
Don't worry.
They can't use their hands to shoot them.
Should be interesting.
In international news, after months of protests
over its strict hijab laws, Iran
is reportedly considering abolishing
its infamous morality police.
[cheering]
Yeah.
That's right.
And if that happened, it would be wild.
Iran might defund the police before Milwaukee.
Speaking of morality police, some news
out of the US Supreme Court.
This morning the justices heard arguments
on whether a Colorado-based web designer can refuse to build
websites for gay weddings, which she says
violates her religious beliefs.
And I'm sorry, but what is this web designer's process
that making a wedding website violates
her religious beliefs?
It's just like, OK, I'm adding your hotel block info, time
and date of ceremony, a hardcore
video of the two of you [bleep] each other, and done.
[laughter]
Out of here, man.
All right, let's move on to some
of the biggest stories of the day, starting with Twitter.
It's what Elon Musk bought for his midlife crisis
instead of a Lamborghini.
Over the weekend, Elon released the so-called Twitter files,
which many conservatives had hoped
would prove that Twitter colluded with Democrats
to censor news about Hunter Biden's laptop
during the 2020 election.
Instead, they mostly just showed the Biden
campaign asking Twitter to take down
nude photos of Hunter Biden.
So, yeah, sorry, everyone.
If you want to see naked people,
you've got to go to every other website on the internet,
I guess.
So the Twitter files turned out to be a major letdown
for conservatives.
Right?
There was no proof of a conspiracy
to help defeat Donald Trump.
But you know who doesn't care about any of that?
Donald Trump.
Former President Donald Trump's false claims
about the 2020 election now have
him calling for the Constitution to be terminated.
"With the revelation of massive and widespread fraud
and deception in working closely with big tech
companies, the DNC, and the Democratic Party,
do you throw the presidential election results of 2020
out and declare the rightful winner,
or do you have a new election?
A massive fraud of this type and magnitude
allows for the termination of all rules,
regulations, and articles, even those
found in the Constitution."
Yeah, that's right.
The Republican frontrunner for president of the United States
wants to terminate the Constitution
because Twitter wouldn't allow him
to see Hunter Biden's dick. Yeah.
[laughter]
He's like, (IMITATING TRUMP) I want to see the peepee.
I want to see it.
I want to see what I'm dealing with.
If you want to see Hunter Biden's dick,
just get a bag of cocaine like everyone else, Mr. President.
Also, why is this still news?
Can anyone tell me?
Like, why is this still even a headline?
Donald Trump thinks this undermines the election.
He thinks that about everything--
everything.
However the math equation starts,
his answer is always the same.
Doesn't matter where-- it's like a waiter could
come up like, I'm sorry, sir.
The kitchen says we've run out of the Mickey
Mouse pancakes. (IMITATING TRUMP) This is the last straw.
We need to redo the election.
We do have the Donald Duck waffles. (IMITATING TRUMP)
It's too late.
I'm storming the Capitol.
I'll have those to go, please.
And, look, I get that Trump doesn't like to lose.
But, my man, 2020 is over.
You've got to move on.
Trump is like one of those guys who never stops trying
to get back with his ex.
Like, he's texting her years later like, hey, you up?
And she's like, yeah, I'm up with my kids from my marriage.
Like, oh, still playing hard to get.
I like that.
But, honestly, though, what a start
to the Trump 2024 campaign.
First, he had dinner with Nazi lovers.
Now he's calling to scrap the Constitution.
What's next?
Is he going to give the Lincoln Memorial enormous boobs,
and still the GOP is going to come out like, (IMITATING
MCCONNELL) well, I personally would
have gone with a tasteful B cup,
but I think President Trump's heart is in the right place.
Mah.
But enough of Trump and his craziness.
Let's calm things down with a news story out of Tampa,
Florida, where we finally found the answer to the quantum
physics paradox, what happens when a police officer pulls
over the chief of police?
Tampa's top cop has been placed on administrative leave
after she flashed her badge, apparently
using her status as police chief
to get out of a traffic stop.
After the deputy proceeds to explain to them why they were
being pulled over, which, by the way,
was because they were driving a golf cart on a public road
without the appropriate tags, this happened.
Is your camera on?
OFFICER: It is.
I'm the police chief in Tampa.
OFFICER: Oh, how you doing?
I'm doing good.
OFFICER: OK.
I'm hoping that you'll just let us go tonight.
OFFICER: Oh, OK, yeah.
All right, folks.
Well, have a good night.
Oh, all right.
You ever need anything-- call me.
OFFICER: OK. - Serious.
OFFICER: All right, appreciate that.
Thank you. OFFICER: Yes, ma'am.
You're welcome. So--
Thank you for your service.
Oh.
[laughs] You know, I don't know what's funnier in that video.
First of all-- first of all, I think
it's crazy that she asks if the officer's
body cam is on before incriminating herself.
[laughter]
Because what was she going to do if the body camera was off?
Oh, it's not recording.
Quick, Doug, whap him over the head!
Let's get out of here!
Just hit him!
And, secondly, I love how she does that thing.
Like, if you notice it, she does that thing
that white people do, where they act like it hurts
them to pull rank over you.
She's like, do you know, turns out I'm the--
I'm the chief of police.
[laughter]
Yeah, that's--
[applause]
I-- I didn't want to bring it up, but I am.
White people love doing that shit!
Yeah, they'll be at a hotel like,
can I get a late checkout from my room?
Be like, I'm sorry, sir.
We can't accommodate you.
Oh, but I do own the hotel.
Yeah, I'm Brad Radisson.
Yeah.
Ah.
That's what I love about Black people.
There's no pretending.
Black people aren't pretending that it pains them
to wield their power over you.
They'll just tell you.
Be like, sorry, sir, we can't do a late checkout for you.
Like, late check out for me, bitch.
I own this hotel!
Shit, I check out when I want.
You don't tell DaQuan Radisson when he can
check out of his own hotel!
I'll tell you, you can check out.
Now, after this video came out, the mayor of Tampa
suspended this police chief.
And because of the pressure, she was forced to resign,
which, can I just say, is the biggest waste
of a scandal of all time.
This is what you used your pow-- you realize there are
police chiefs who have stolen millions
of dollars in drug money.
Meanwhile, she's out here like, yeah I pulled some strings
and drove super slow on the highway.
[laughter]
But enough about that.
Let's move on to a story that had the internet
buzzing all weekend.
And it's about artificial intelligence, which,
by the way, is not when you regurgitate
an Atlantic article and act like you
thought of it for yourself. No.
For years, people have been wondering when we would see
the next step in natural language processing
from the world of AI.
And it looks like the future is already here.
REPORTER: A new artificial intelligence
is astounding the internet with its ease
of use and human-like writing ability.
ChatGPT was opened to the public last weekend.
And many have already posted their interactions
with the bot.
So far, it's written television scripts, fixed coding errors,
and even explained scientific concepts
in the voice of a pirate.
Yeah, that's right.
For years, people have been saying,
robots might be able to pack boxes,
but they will never be able to write
a poem like human beings.
Well, it turns out your shitty poetry has some competition.
Because I don't know if you've used
this chat bot, but it is insane.
Not only can it understand a question you're asking,
and then teach you about the most complicated topics--
it can design a lesson plan.
It can give you the information.
And it's not regurgitating it.
It's explaining it to you.
It can also write out the answers as
if a pirate was teaching you.
You understand how amazing that is?
Like, quantum physics is one, but a pirate on top of that.
Like, I wish I had this technology as a kid.
The only reason I failed any subject
is because the teacher was boring.
But if Blackbeard was teaching me about physics,
I would have remembered everything. (IMITATING PIRATE)
Yar, light operates as both a wave and a particle
the same way you can operate as both a human and fish food.
Walk the plank!
Mah!
[shouts] Don't forget to do your homework.
[applause]
Obviously-- obviously-- obviously,
this technology has a lot of people asking,
is this going to replace my job as a teacher
or as a receptionist, journalist, or even an author?
And the truth is we don't really know.
But it is interesting to see how our fears about AI
have shifted radically over the years.
Right?
In the '80s and the '90s, we thought that in the future,
people would be like, these damn machines
are wiping out the human race!
And now our fear is that, in the future,
we're going to be like, these damn machines keep writing
love letters to my wife!
She's going to leave me!
And you've got to admit-- you've got to admit it's weird
that we are this obsessed with robots talking like humans,
but we all hate talking to actual humans.
Right?
Like, everyone's using this like, wow,
it's like I'm talking to my mom.
It's like, hey, your mom's actually
calling you right now. Ah, let it go to voicemail.
Let it go to voicemail.
Ask it if it's proud of me.
All right, that's it for the headlines.
But before we go to break, it's time
to check in on all the latest social media trends
with our very own Ronny Chieng, everybody.
[cheering]
Thanks, Trevor.
Thank you.
All right.
TREVOR NOAH: What is happening online?
Well, I've been poring through tweets,
Instagrams, OnlyFans, TikToks, Snapchats, OnlyFans, 4Chans,
mastodons, OnlyFans again.
And now I'm mentally ill.
Here's what's trending, the World Cup,
where for 90 minutes, two countries
can put politics aside and hate each other
based on pure ethnicity.
Today Croatia beat Japan, and Brazil
knocked South Korea out.
And the thing about the World Cup
is that when you come from a country like me,
Malaysia, that's never in the World Cup, all you can do
is cheer for people who look a little bit like you--
Japan, Korea.
And then when they got eliminated,
you just cheer for whoever is not white, so France.
[cheering]
But the big story of the day, as you said,
was the AI chatbot, the [bleep] Charles Dickens robot trying
to make Siri look illiterate.
Personally, I don't like this bot, OK?
Because every time you ask it a question, it cranks
out a 10,000-word think piece.
Relax.
We got enough humans with opinions.
I don't need my Roomba to develop
a hot take on anti-Semitism.
[laughter]
And, by the way, did I miss an update or something?
Because we got robots writing sonnets here.
But every time I call Verizon, that robot can't
even recognize me saying yes.
[laughter]
OK?
So let's bring back the picture AI.
Bring back that one.
That one was cool.
They were putting Drake in The Matrix.
Now that was useful, all right?
And if you don't recognize this,
that means that you're not on Black Twitter
enough because that shit was popping.
All right?
Follow me @StirFryHoTap.
[laughter]
And, by the way--
this joke for the Black people.
And, by the way, I know you're saying
this AI is going to take over a lot of jobs, OK?
And maybe it will.
But I'm not worried about it taking over comedy jobs.
Because AI can't do what we do, all right?
AI doesn't have the emotion, the artistry,
or the fundamental ability to get hit in the balls.
And, as we know, nothing is as funny as getting hit
in the balls.
I mean, the magic of what we do is not a mathematical equation
that can--
ow!
Ow!
You see that?
You see that, Trevor?
You see how funny that was?
An AI bot can never do that.
So you can kiss my ass, R2-D2.
[laughter]
Everyone's so excited about this thing.
I mean, look-- look at what people are tweeting about it.
I mean, just look at this guy.
Look at this idiot.
Oh, AI is the future.
Oh, wow, what a genius.
Did this guy go to MIT?
I mean, what's he going to predict
next-- that Apple will come up with a new iPhone next year?
I mean, I hope this guy is a bot because no human would
write anything that stupid.
[laughter]
Anyway, Trevor, I got to go meet
this really hot woman online.
She really likes me, and she's smart as hell.
And she talks like a pirate.
So I'll see you later, loser.
Well, good luck with that, Ronny.
She sounds like real fun.
All right, when we come back, Dulcé Sloan is going
to school all of us on drag.
So don't go away.
[cheering]
[music playing]
Please, do not try this if you have African parents.
[laughter]
Yeah, because you'll be like, I faked my kidnapping.
And they'll be like, but your funeral will be real, eh?
If you told an African parent that you won't swim
without a lifeguard, they'll be like, eh, do you
know who is your lifeguard?
Jesus.
[blows kiss]
But an African mother, if she's mad, you know it.
She'll be like, I will show you how much I love
you with how hard I spank you.
140 pounds, have you eaten?
Have you eaten in your life, huh?
Are you not married?
Go back to the food court.
Go back to the-- look at this one.
Yes, yes, we are just one big country full of giraffes, huh?
Can you come and pick this up for me?
And she'd be like, are you-- are you being serious
right now?
Are you telling me to pick up-- well,
I am the-- there is only one king, and that is Jesus, huh?
There is only one king in this world, and that is Jesus!
You pick up that paper.
You pick up that paper now, Charles.
[music playing]
[cheering]
Welcome back to The Daily Show.
Drag shows are going through a tumultuous time in America.
On the one hand, it's never been more popular.
But, on the other hand, it's become the targets
of huge right-wing backlash as we
saw just this weekend in Ohio.
REPORTER: Demonstrators protested
a drag storytelling event in Ohio over the weekend.
It was supposed to take place at a church,
but was canceled because of safety concerns,
while several dozen members of the far-right Proud Boys
and Patriot Front stood along the roads,
touting guns and face masks.
Some chanted, reclaim America.
Others gave a Nazi salute.
You know, I don't know if it's a chemical reaction
or a genetic predisposition.
But any time a white man covers his face in white fabric,
ain't no good coming after that.
Because all over America, more and more stories like this
are popping up, right?
Where grown men are showing up to drag shows
to fight the tyranny of people wearing
dresses and having fun?
Which you've got to admit is a little ironic, isn't it?
Yeah, just these guys running around angry
like, these grown men dressing up
in these ridiculous costumes, it's not right!
Are you in the military, sir?
Uh, no, but the character I roleplay as is a Navy SEAL.
Yeah, do you like it?
Do you like it?
[cheering]
And conservatives will give different reasons
for why drag must be stopped.
You know, some say it's immoral.
Some say that it sexualizes kids.
Some say that Monét X Change should have won
season 7 of All-Stars , and they'll never
forgive RuPaul for that.
[cheering]
But, if you ask us, this just shows how little conservatives
know about drag.
So here to educate all of us is our very own Dulcé Sloan.
[music playing]
Drag dates all the way back to the world's
most ancient civilizations.
I'm talking the Incas, the Aztecs, the Egyptians. ,
Basically anyone that could build a pyramid
also had a fierce walk.
I mean, why do you think every man,
woman, and eagle in ancient Egyptian art had a smoky eye?
Now, drag was originally done in these ancient civilizations
for tribal and religious ceremonies.
It's pretty much how priests got started wearing mumus.
It wasn't until modern times that drag
played a role in entertainment, and not
just any entertainment.
I'm talking about the bad bitch Bard himself, Shakespeare.
Back in his time, men dressed in drag to play women's roles.
Although that was really less about drag and more
about keeping women out of acting.
Methinks that doth be some bullshit, Horatio.
Mm-hmm.
So for a long time, the stage was pretty much the only place
drag was acceptable.
It wasn't until the 18th century in England
that drag performers started to express themselves
outside the theater.
They met at private residences, where they could safely dress
as their female alter egos.
And those places became known as Molly houses.
And it was at these Molly houses
where the first prominent drag queen
was born, Princess Seraphina.
She was the first drag queen to take her drag out
of the privacy of the Molly houses
and into public events like masquerade balls.
And it was a big deal and incredibly
brave because it meant volunteering
to deal with catcalling.
Now, while 18th century England gave us drag queens,
19th century America gave us drag balls.
It's the only time queens colonized a country
and made it better.
One of the most famous drag performers at that time
was a former enslaved African named William
Dorsey "The Queen" Swann.
Dorsey slayed so hard, he went on to become a pioneer
of modern ballroom culture.
Now, there are no existing photos of the queen herself,
because how dare you?
She was too glamorous to have her image
captured by you peasants.
No.
But for reference, historians believe her look was
probably something like this.
Now that is fashion.
Come through, Bridgerton.
America's drag balls brought the culture to the next level.
In Harlem, they became so popular
that men and women would come from all over to present
their looks to a panel of judges, pageant style.
And, you know, there's something
comforting in knowing that even hundreds of years ago,
people were telling someone to their face
that they were a messy bitch whose outfit is trash.
Oh, the circle of life.
In the early 1900s, one of the top drag performers
was William Dalton, or better known by his drag
name, Julian Eltinge.
Damn, look at those outfits.
They can play both leads in Casablanca.
Just look how good her makeup is.
And that was before Wet n Wild.
She pulled that off with house paint and beet juice.
Julian was able to take her drag mainstream
by performing on Broadway and even
in front of King Edward VII.
I mean, of course, he liked it.
That duke could rock a cape.
In fact, the king was so impressed,
he gifted Julian with a bulldog, which, personally, I
don't think is a great prize.
I prefer trophies that don't need to shit three times
a day.
Drag balls then exploded throughout the 1920s and '30s.
But like with most things, popularity
brings out the haters.
Mainstream actors started linking them to homosexuality.
And soon masquerade laws were passed, prohibiting
cross-dressing in public.
And you know what that meant.
That's right.
The Harry Styles world tour was canceled!
[gasps]
Due to these laws, drag went underground again.
And it wasn't until the late '80s
that it returned to the mainstream.
But when it came back, oh, it came back in a big way.
Drag performers were featured in major motion pictures,
including one of the best known sisters of the silver screen,
Divine, who starred in the movie Hairspray
and was the inspiration for the Disney character Ursula.
Damn.
Curvy, incredible singing voice, and impeccable taste,
are you sure we're not talking about me?
[music playing]
Thanks to all these brave drag performers, today we have hit
shows featuring drag queens.
And we have a good reason to eat
a meal as beautiful as brunch.
So to all the outrage conservatives
trying to drag drag through the mud, open a history book.
Now I know you hate those, but now they have pictures.
[music playing]
Thank you so much for that Dulcé.
All right, stay tuned, because when we come back,
New York Times bestselling author
Tressie McMillan Cottom will be joining
me right here on the show. You don't want to miss it.
[cheering]
Welcome back to The Daily Show.
My guest tonight is a professor at UNC Chapel Hill and a New
York Times columnist.
She's one of my favorite guests,
so I'm delighted to have her back on the show.
Please, welcome Tressie McMillan Cottom.
[music playing]
[cheering]
Tressie McMillan Cottom, welcome
back to The Daily Show.
Welcome back to me, indeed.
It's a pleasure to be back.
TREVOR NOAH: Right, or do I say professor?
I would love to know what you prefer because you have
so many prestigious titles with New
York Times bestselling author, or it could be professor.
It could be MacArthur-- is it a Genius
Grant that they give you?
You can say that.
I think I'm not supposed to say that.
Oh.
The foundation would prefer not, but it's--
- Oh, that's interesting. - Yeah.
So they say you're a genius, but they're like, you're not
allowed to say it of yourself.
Exactly, kind of like your mother tells you some things
are best said about you by others.
I see.
Oh, you're amazing, but don't ever
think that about yourself.
Yeah.
That's-- well-- well, then I will say it to you--
the genius professor that is Tressie.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you very much.
[cheering]
What a time to have you on because there are
few people who I've enjoyed learning
from, engaging with, studying.
Because you're not just a professor.
You're a sociologist.
You're somebody who looks at the world.
You study what has happened, what is happening,
and how you think it will happen going forward.
And right now feels like an interesting time
of everything that's going on.
Let's start with one of our favorite platforms
that we chat on all the time, Twitter.
It's been a really interesting time on Twitter right now.
Yes, that's an understatement.
I try. I try.
- Yes. - I specialize in those.
[laughs]
I would love to know your opinion on Twitter itself
and how we see its role in our society.
There are some who say, because it is a business,
Elon can do whatever he wants.
He paid for it. He can take it.
He can he can do as he pleases.
On the other hand, there are people who are saying,
Elon taking over Twitter, which has become this public square,
only goes to show how dangerous it can be to have billionaires
defining what everybody else can speak
or what their speech might or may not be.
And all of those things are true.
They are not true, to my mind, in equal parts.
So I think the bigger story here
is that we outsourced the public square
to the private sector, right?
Twitter becomes or feels like the public square.
But it has never operated in practice as a public square.
It cannot.
It is not owned by the state or by the people.
And, in fact, one of the things that minority people,
queer people have said for years about Twitter
is that they could not participate the same way
that really powerful brands could participate
or politicians or--
TREVOR NOAH: Interesting.
--particularly especially trolls.
And so in a true public square, there
would be some way for people to talk back,
right, to the powers that be.
That's never been Twitter.
That's never been any social media platform.
That is the difference between a business and something
that is truly public.
So it is a business.
Elon Musk can buy it as he was eventually,
you know, forced to do.
[laughter]
He wrote a check, and then his behind had to cash it.
And that's how we find ourselves here.
That we have used it to try to express sort of people power.
TREVOR NOAH: Right, right, right.
--does not mean that the people own it
or have any authority over it.
What that says to me and what I think
it says to many other people is that there
should be a public space.
We are in an information society.
Information is power, and it is money.
Why don't we have a civic public square--
TREVOR NOAH: Interesting.
--that exists on the internet?
Elon Musk buying Twitter would not have mattered if the state
was competing with Twitter.
TREVOR NOAH: That's interesting.
[applause]
But do you think--
many of these ideas are sound except when
you add in that the state in question would be America.
- Yes. - You know?
That's right. [laughs]
No, and I mean this not because of America's ineptness
or anything, but rather because America
sees everything through the lens of left or right,
Democrat, Republican always.
It doesn't matter what the issue is.
And it feels like America itself would never
be able to create something like this
because both sides wouldn't agree on what the thing should
or shouldn't be.
Oh, no, absolutely.
I mean, we see this debate about everything that is
publicly governed, particularly our schools, right,
where we cannot agree on whether or not our schools are
indoctrinating our children or should be preparing them
for the economy of the future.
Somehow Americans want it to do both, right?
Don't teach my children anything, but make
sure that they can be competitive in the economy
of the future. TREVOR NOAH: [laughs]
But you know what?
That is the mess of Democratic participation.
It does not mean that we get it right.
It means that there is a way to get it right sometimes.
So we don't have to have the whole thing figured out for us
to invest in publicness.
So one of--
I teach at a public university in North Carolina.
And I teach a lot of students who
will go on to work in libraries and in the information sector.
You know, libraries are, to me, the shining
example on the hill of what a public space can be.
Are they perfect?
Absolutely not.
But do they welcome people into them
and meet people where they are?
Absolutely.
Can America do that?
Yes.
Now do we have to fight to do it every step of the way?
Absolutely.
But we can have that fight.
You can't have that fight when an entity is owned
by a single megalomaniac.
Huh.
[applause]
You know, when we talk about these spaces
and we talk about these ideas and we talk
about these conversations, there's
no denying that Twitter and many places
like it have benefited from the diverse array
of voices that have now been part of the platform,
you know?
You wouldn't know what was happening
on the ground in the same way in Iran
were it not for Twitter.
TRESSIE MCMILLAN COTTOM: Exactly.
You know, you wouldn't know what was happening
on the ground in the same way in Charlottesville
were it not for Twitter.
It has become-- as you say, it has the illusion
at times of a public square.
But many people have used it to that effect.
I would love to know, from your perspective,
as somebody who has seen your own journey,
from general obscurity to now becoming somebody whose
voice is so respected and recognized--
you write for The New York Times as part of their op-ed.
You're shaping people's opinions.
How do you find the balance, or how do you
inspire people you teach to think
critically about the world that they're living in?
Because half of the things we know are taught to us.
And then at some point, we have to decipher between what we've
been taught is the truth and then what is the truth
or where the gray even exists.
How do you even begin that journey as a teacher
and as a learner because you're constantly learning?
Well, I think that is part of it.
I try to always be a learner.
It's really easy, I think, to develop and grow
in your career and forget how overwhelming
it is to learn something new for the first time.
So I try to be an idiot as much as humanly possible.
TREVOR NOAH: I love that. I love that.
I do that all the time. - Yes.
[laughter]
You know, I enroll in something.
I take up something that I'm just absolutely
horrible at doing because I want to feel how
vulnerable it feels to learn.
And it is a very vulnerable space.
TREVOR NOAH: Right.
So when I am feeling generous,
I think that there is a not insignificant part
of the American public that isn't
so much afraid of the other as they are of being ignorant.
And some people would rather be angry than stupid.
TREVOR NOAH: Interesting.
And so figuring it out is actually really hard.
This is something I've learned as I've taught people.
And so there's a certain amount of vulnerability, I think,
we have to share with each other
to say that just because I have achieved something
in one part of the world or in one profession
doesn't mean I know everything.
Now the challenge for us is that we have a culture that
absolutely likes to turn every success
story into a universal story of genius.
TREVOR NOAH: Yes.
Right?
So you founded Facebook, and now you
can solve world hunger, as if those have anything
to do with each other.
So that is a problem of the culture.
But I don't think it has to be that way.
And I actually think one of the good things about Twitter
has been how many people have been willing to model learning
in public so that other people could see that it doesn't have
to strip you of your status or your position,
that learning can happen without you flailing about.
I think I'll miss that about Twitter.
As in it's gone? You think it's--
No, it ends eventually. Listen.
Oh, OK.
All social media apps end.
Right.
There'll be something new, obviously.
But I don't know that anything else would
be able to capture-- that was one of the best
things about Twitter.
It was a space for people to see
different kinds of genius--
TREVOR NOAH: I like that.
--that you could be good in one domain,
still learning in another domain,
that you could risk it.
It is something that I enjoyed doing, personally.
And I think that it was never the app's intention-- listen,
people turned it into that.
That is not what it was designed to do.
TREVOR NOAH: You think that's because we innately want
to do that as human beings?
I do.
I have to believe that human beings
are fundamentally curious.
And social media is only popular because we're curious.
We go there because we want to see.
We're nosy.
[laughter]
We want to rubberneck the world, you know?
And so what it has done, it's made it profitable--
made our curiosity profitable.
TREVOR NOAH: Right.
And it has made our curiosity politically polarized.
But that doesn't mean that curiosity is bad.
I actually think it is a thing that separates
us from the rest of--
well, no, the animal kingdom.
I don't want to throw shade on animals.
Animals are good. [laughter]
TREVOR NOAH: They are pretty curious.
Yeah.
They actually are pretty curious.
Yeah.
I think we're apes if we're lucky.
Right.
You know?
But it does separate us, I think, from, like,
a brick wall. - It does, indeed.
It does, indeed.
Shade to all the bricks has been thrown.
That is correct. [laughs]
- The animals have been spared. - The animals are good.
I could talk to you for hours,
but that's why we have your books.
That's why we have some of your tweets.
Thank you again for joining me on the show.
Thank you for everything. - Always happy to see you.
Everything, I really appreciate you.
- Thank you. - Thank you so much.
One more time, Tressie McMillan Cottom, everybody.
We're going to take a quick break,
but we'll be right back after this.
Thank you again.
[cheering]
Well, that's our show for tonight.
But before we go-- before we go,
this holiday season consider supporting Feeding America,
the largest hunger relief organization
in the United States.
They work to get nourishing food from farmers,
manufacturers, and retailers to our neighbors,
while addressing the root causes of hunger.
So if you can support them in their work,
then please donate at the link below.
Until next time, stay safe out there.
And, remember, the robots can't take your job
if you're already unemployed.
Now here it is, your Moment of Zen.
[bells]
I'm going to stay here with the carolers.
I'll send it back to you, Frank and Jess in Hollywood.
- You fit right in. - You do.
I don't know this song.
- (SINGING) Holly. - Honey.
Holly.
Honey?
Nailed it.
[gibberish]
- Think she has it. - Right.
[laughs]
[bells]