A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein

Neil Patrick Harris would like to make art that is “apolitical.” Sydney Sweeney “is not a political person.” Jelly Roll is a “dumb redneck” who we shouldn’t want to hear from, but we will be hearing his thoughts on global events “soon.” Ethan Hawke says we shouldn’t seek moral guidance from “a bunch of jet-lagged, drunk artists,” and perhaps he’s right. But at a time when celebrities who were once known for their political outspokenness have gotten strangely coy (Taylor Swift and Beyoncé come to mind), one naturally begins to wonder if something is amiss. And when LeBron James, who cites civil rights hero Muhammad Ali as an inspiration, says he’s heard “only great things” about Israel — now we’re just being, well, played. Today, Gianmarco Soresi, Caroline Kwan and I examine the marked shift pop culture has taken towards spinelessness and attempt to remedy it.

Listen to bonus episodes on Patreon!

Thanks to today’s sponsors!

Start managing your money better and cancel unwanted expenses at https://www.rocketmoney.com/fruity.

Get 15% off a cuter, more sustainable way to clean at https://www.blueland.com/fruity.

Follow Gianmarco on Instagram.

Watch Gianmarco’s podcast, The Downside.

Watch Caroline on Twitch.

Find me on Instagram.

Find A Bit Fruity on Instagram.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ICE is many things — chief among them, an outgrowth of a seemingly neverending masculinity crisis. The U.S. government has devised a billion dollar strategy to recruit aggrieved young men into ICE with the promise of giving them a purpose: to “restore the homeland.” And their masculinity. The results have been devastating. A parallel crisis of manhood is unfolding in the form of looksmaxxers, a booming online community of men injecting meth and breaking their bones to enhance their perceived physical beauty. Today, YouTube essay legend F.D Signifier, Twitch culture streamer Caroline Kwan and I explore the evermore bizarre ways patriarchy is setting men up to fail while everyone else pays the price.

Listen to bonus episodes on Patreon!

Thanks to today’s sponsors!

Protect yourself online, wherever you go. Get a discount on NordVPN at https://www.nordvpn.com/fruity

Work smarter, not harder, with Factor meals ready in two minutes at https://www.factormeals.com/fruity50off

Watch F.D Signifier on YouTube.

Watch Caroline on Twitch.

Find me on Instagram.

Find A Bit Fruity on Instagram.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ashley St. Clair dropped out of college to become a full-time conservative influencer. Five years later, she was pregnant with Elon Musk’s child. Within months, the weight of the politics Ashley built her career on collapsed. Elon publicly disparaged Ashley and reneged on his fatherly responsibilities, and the influencer who once shamed single mothers on Fox News was one herself. Today, June (or JUNlPER, of Twitter fame) joins me to have a frank discussion with a newly reformed Ashley St. Clair. We probe her on profiting off anti-LGBT bigotry, the seductiveness of the right-wing influencer ecosystem, and making amends. And, of course, what it’s like for the leopards to eat your face.

Listen to bonus episodes on Patreon!

Thanks to today’s sponsors!

Start managing your money better and cancel unwanted expenses at https://www.rocketmoney.com/fruity.

Get 15% off a cuter, more sustainable way to clean at https://www.blueland.com/fruity.

Listen to June’s podcast, Kill The Computer.

Listen to June’s other podcast, Ill Conceived.

Follow June on Bluesky.

Find me on Instagram.

Find A Bit Fruity on Instagram.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Candace Owens’s daily livestreams have more viewers than Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC combined. The woman who less than a decade ago was a liberal blogger in New York City is now one of the most powerful voices representing — and tearing apart — the American Right. Her latest and most successful act is that of a professional conspiracy theorist, spinning webs around Brigitte Macron’s gender, Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and of course, The Jews. Millions of people who’ve self-admittedly “never agreed with Candace” are finding themselves in her clutches. Today, fellow Connecticut native Taylor Lorenz and I take a trip into Candaceland to try to decipher why Candace is the way she is and what the Right may look like after Trump.

Listen to bonus episodes on Patreon!

Thanks to today’s sponsors!

Support a fairer future free from religious overreach at https://humanist.org/fruity

Work smarter, not harder, with Factor meals ready in two minutes at https://www.factormeals.com/fruity50off

Watch Taylor on YouTube.

Read Taylor’s work on User Mag.

Find me on Instagram.

Find A Bit Fruity on Instagram.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Nicki Minaj stepped on stage in Phoenix, Arizona, with one hand clasping Erika Kirk and the other waving to a crowd of white supremacists, even I was shocked. We’ve known the Queen of Rap to be many unsavory things: an insecure egomaniac, a steadfast defender of predators, an obsessive poster (she has my solidarity on that one). But “fascist propagandist” I did not see coming. Today, Olayemi Olurin, Kat Tenbarge and I draw a map of Nicki’s life to make sense of how she got here, what she hopes to receive from it, and if it’ll even pan out.

Listen to bonus episodes on Patreon!

Thanks to today’s sponsors!

Work smarter, not harder, with Factor meals ready in two minutes at https://www.factormeals.com/fruity50off

Start managing your money better and cancel unwanted expenses at https://www.rocketmoney.com/fruity. 

Subscribe to Kat Tenbarge’s work.

Follow Kat Tenbarge on Bluesky.

Subscribe to Olay on YouTube.

Follow Olay on Instagram.

Find me on Instagram.

Find A Bit Fruity on Instagram.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices