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Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas one of the most dangerous and uncomfortable
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conversations that independently employed creative artists have with themselves in this climate is
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how far they should push the envelope how far is too far how self expressed can we be how authentic
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can we be versus how much should we count out the opinions of our peers the opinions of our leaders
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and the mandates of the algorithms that drive so much of our income today's guest is arguably the
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most successful cartoonist in the world he's an Aussie who lives in New York City and at the age
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of 23 he was handed the keys to Australia's longest running most iconic most famous
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newspaper comedy comic strip if you think of things like Dilbert and Dennis the menace and
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Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield and peanuts and so on in Australia we had ginger megs and Jason
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wrote and drew ginger megs for almost 20 years it was syndicated all over the world he moved to
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New York City and became a big deal in American cartooning as well he ended up the president
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of the National Cartoonists Society essentially the chief grand pubert of satirical cartoonists
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in the United States so how do you sustain a career independently on substack when your craft is
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so seemingly old-fashioned as writing and illustrating a comic strip Jason joined me for a substack
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live on the day that Zoran Mamdani became the mayor elect of New York City so I wanted his thoughts
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about politics about satire about the vibe of the city with Mamdani coming in about how you
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construct an authentic creative life in this crazy world of ours and resist the forces of
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censorship from the powerful and from your peers this is a premium episode so you will get a
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healthy and interesting chunk of it whether you pay or not but the heart and the meat of the
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conversation where we throw around our ideas about creativity and authenticity and independence
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of thought that mostly comes after a paywall so if you're a paid subscriber and this episode
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doesn't run for well over an hour then you need to hop over to your premium feed you're listening
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to the wrong one if you're a free subscriber and you want to hear all of every episode because
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roughly every second episode of this show is paywall halfway through you can click to subscribe
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in apple podcasts or in Spotify or better yet to get all of our live streams and all of our
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other goodies at uncomfortable conversations dot substack dot com I hope you enjoy as much as I did
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the one and only Jason Jefffield I unfortunately stood Jason up a couple of days ago and
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the I told him that I would tell him why because in my defense Jason I was quite busy this week
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there was a lockdown okay Papa had things to do one of which was I was flying down to Canberra on
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the day that I was supposed to talk to you the day before yesterday to moderate a panel event with
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four parliamentarians former cabinet minister head of the national party in the center you know
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important people about getting money out of politics and I was a little underprepared and so I had
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that had to do that and then I had to sort of prep for your interview and I also had another
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thing that I was doing that day and then I was going to have to fly down and I hadn't had much
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sleep for the past two nights and so that was the context so I thought before I took to Jason
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I'll get up early I'll get up at five I'll have a couple of hours to do a bit of writing for the
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thing before coming in and talking to you um so I creep downstairs my eight-year-old twins
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are asleep I get my morning vitamin pills together and I'm packing my stuff together my daughter
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comes in because I've woken her up she's standing there in the dark I'm not paying much attention
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I'm a bit bleary I'd I take my pills and I go to pack my bag and it's very very very rare
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that I am in possession of hardcore sleeping pills but if I have a big gig and I'm going to be
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amped up and I've got an early flight the following day and I know I'm going to get back to my
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hotel room at 11 p.m full of adrenaline and I have to get up at six I'll take a sleeping pill and
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not myself out the sleeping pill was what I took at five in the morning and I took it by mistake
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thinking that it was just a vitamin pill in the dark and then I was like oh shit you can't you
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can't drive if you stay awake when you take these things it says be aware that you will go into a
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fugue state and you will babble like a madman and you will have no recollection of whatever you
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said so I can't do a sub stack live stream where I just start railing against the Jews or something
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I wish you did it would have been wild it would have been incredible I would have just been
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off my face so I was like I mean I just have to go to bed and like
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yes I went back to bed and slept for five hours you were on lute against that's what I was rolling Jason
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rolling oh you I mean that's pretty impressive so the fact that you stayed awake as long as you
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did is very impressive I just it was it was rough so just if you if you're in possession of
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you know psychoactive pharmaceuticals then be careful with them because you don't want to
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maybe put them in a different state you would think you would think that I mean the thing is they
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were in a totally different packet and I even popped it out of the I it was I picked up the blister
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pack to put in my bag absent mindedly popped the pill out of it and then just took it right so
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Sigmund Freud would say that when it comes to the mind there are no mistakes and I was actually
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subliminally saying zeps you got too much on today mate yeah screw this it's the deck have a
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light down buddy too much going on I mean there's getting dressed in the dark and then there's
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getting blushing there's getting drugged drugging yourself I mean it is although I feel good about
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myself that the hardest drug that I had in the house was the sleeping pill like you know you're
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boring in middle age right the hardest drug that you can put your hands on is an ambient or whatever
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how's are you in New York now I am in New York now I'm in your old stomping ground yes it's it's just
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the way you left it but with a new mayor yeah I know I mean I still go there about three or four
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times a year when I can but not under Mamdani town have things have things shut down already are
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the grocery stores closed in anticipation of his free state owned grocery stores yeah have the
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other months three years getting in yeah of course all the buses are free people are refusing to
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pay people are going into these state runs grocery stores and getting free apples it's wild you wouldn't
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believe it you wouldn't recognize a place are you able to vote to you a citizen or no yeah I mean you
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are citizen now I panicked because Trump blocked me on Twitter and I thought I should probably become
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a citizen because I'm now clearly on a list yes I mean I always thought that when I was a permanent
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resident and had a green card I was like I mean you're basically a citizen like the only differences
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that you can't vote how naive I was not apparently yeah yeah I that was the panic that set in was
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that I I noticed some people on oh ones and he be ones getting shunted out under the last
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administration so under the first Trump administration so I was like oh I want an EP one that
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should probably become a naturalized citizen although I did learn the word denaturalization
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this week which panicked the hell out of me that's a thing well presumably that's
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means a person normally would be giving up the citizenship by choice wouldn't they when they
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denaturalize or are you saying that people can be stripped of their citizenship yeah that's what
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it usually means and now it means a presidential ability to strip one of their citizenship if he
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signs one of those big steakhouse menus with a Sharpie yeah that can't be legal that can't be
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conscious no it's not at all but the time that it takes to challenge it in court is longer than
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it would take to enact the actual things so they're already out by the time it's challenged it's
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yeah that's the play that's incredible I mean the city country who does the country belong to
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if not its citizens like when the constitution says we the people it's talking about the citizens
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of the country you can't just have no idea we the people in the White House you've you've misread
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that document I see ban and he'll tell you I thought it was the people on the ground the voters the
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citizens okay I know you Josh sorry sorry it's Stephen Miller means whoever Stephen Miller says
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is we the people yeah it's how me the people yeah how have you found the run up to the election like
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what has the mood but what first of all explain to people who don't know you what kind of circles
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you swim in what your interests are and who you are because sure I I am an Aussie in New York City
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I've been a cartoonist for 20 years I work for the New Yorker and I've done work for Mad Magazine
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and syndicated comic strips the Aussies might know me as the cartoonist for Ginger Megs for 16 years
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but I do political cartoons I've done political cartoons for
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yeah like 20 something years started in Perth in Frio doing local politics and then work my way
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out to doing national Aussie politics you might have seen me talking with Mike Bowers on talking
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on insiders for many years and then I moved to New York 11 years ago so the lead up in 20
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a question the lead up to the I've never seen anything like it the lead up to the mayoral election
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not only did it force people to learn what a mayor can do what it was what they're where their
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authority begins and ends versus the governor but also people actually really started to young
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people especially started to really engage and got very very intense so all of a sudden you actually
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had to say in the way that you might say in a federal election how you are going to vote people
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where their politics on their sleeve here it's not it's not a faux pas like it is in Australia to
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tell people everyone how you vote right that's interesting I mean more in a local election that
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I had been at a national level because I think that New Yorkers who voted for Trump have always
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felt bashful about talking about it they do now yeah it's it's an interesting thing that I've
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never noticed before this is this is basically like Trump was on the ballot that's how it felt
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it felt like Trump was on the ballot and this was a big protest vote against him that's how it
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felt right right and the three people who voted for Andrew Cuomo were the people who were voting
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for Donald Trump with Cuomo as as his proxy essentially you know what for all his foibles he
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actually did get remarkably close for a minute a minute right yeah I can't imagine that it was
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particularly helpful in New York for Donald Trump to throw his support behind the independent
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candidate rather than the Republican that Republican dude was interesting what the hell was his
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deal yeah I mean I think his whole life he was born to just want to be the mayor of New York also
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he needs a job yeah it is funny because the Republicans just produce these characters you know like in
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the way that it's just like an SNL sketch they just this just they just barrel out of the out of
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the wings and you're like is this and then they've got this whole backstory and an accent and an
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at and a costume and a you know I don't understand why he didn't just it doesn't make any sense if
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even if he combined his votes with Cuomo he still wouldn't want which is not I mean in my brain I
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can't appreciate him exactly but in my brain the Republican candidate is wearing a beret and
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has a parrot on his shoulder correct beret yes and he's been running every single election I mean he's
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he's a career nominee as a career candidate I should say right and um he is honestly he is very
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entertaining in the debates okay and mdani mdani sense of like what he actually wants to accomplish
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in practice is is more inscrutable to me than what his vibe is right I mean like is he
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up do you expect him to be a practical mayor I I want to say yes I really want to say yes but I
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just can't in all honesty knowing how politicians operate and how the machinations of
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of this certainly government politics uh those local government uh I just can't say that is
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going to be that effective I really you know there's all these great promises he's making and
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wonderful assertions that he's making that that really are galvanizing this young generation of
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people disappointed in politics and politicians and and you know just this bottomless endless pit of
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broken promises and here's this guy who's going to come in and he's going to make everything
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right again and he's going to be a democratic socialist and he's going to do these great things
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but he's never held office he's never had to compromise he's never had to actually work
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within the machinations of this particular government he's never had to make the connections that
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a career politician someone like Brad lander or Curtis slua or you know or Cuomo have had to make
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to get things over the line so I don't know as he he may well try to get all these things done
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but he'll probably hit a bunch of brick walls because he's a kid I say that I'm 41 he's 34
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so I'm still calling on the kid but it just feels so I don't want to say I don't want to say he's
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he's a smart he's a very smart young man incredibly smart um great at campaigning but um
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as an actual mayor I don't have a confidence in him and I hate saying that I really do
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I mean the problem is that the same criticisms were made of Obama before he was president he'd
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never been an executive he hadn't run things right um and you know part of me feels like
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everyone who I talk to about Mamdani in the States is either super enthusiastic that the
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democrats are growing a spine and talking about economic justice again instead of you know a bunch
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of work issues or they're terrified that he's a communist who's going to ruin the city and
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there'll be capital flight out of the city and a death spiral of higher taxation and the city
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will become decrepit I mean I feel like maybe we just hold our breath and give him a chance
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for a little while and see like if it's if it's if it's if it's if it's we don't have a choice
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if it's impossible for a yeah I mean if it's true that it's impossible for an idealistic
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young person who's very bright to come in and get anything done that strikes me as more of an
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indictment on the way the system is set up and the way vested interests are entrenched than on
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the idealistic person coming in yeah anyone with the energy or enthusiasm to actually come in and
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want to do anything who the hell would want to get into politics now um it is you know give
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him all the rope they need you know just like let him do the thing let him try at least to do
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something um city can't get much worse than it already is um I mean it's so funny I believe
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history yeah watch my beer yeah yeah I honestly and like you I think it is more of an indictment
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on the system you know the fact that yeah yeah someone comes in and they're like hey I've got
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all these great big ideas and it's going to be interesting and it's like yeah okay all right here's
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the playbook and they're like oh I can't do any of this stuff yeah exactly yeah that's right
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I mean totally let's try to reform the port authority will it start by asking what the hell is
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the port authority like who runs the port authority what do you like you know why is there a
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port authority why is it called a foreign history is like the Pyramids yeah no one is you know
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yeah exactly like is like can we get a train can we get an actual train to JFK instead of one that
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you have to get off and get on to another train that goes to another car park that you have to
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get a monorail from like is this is this the best we can do New York you gotta go through the unions
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and the mafia you gotta know the right people you need an italian yeah exactly and you want to
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extend the subway line by like three stops and it costs the same cost as it costs you know France
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to build its entire TGD network in some GDP of Belgium yeah that's right so we'll see how he goes all
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right good luck uh Mem Donnie how have you found New York as a place to live like coming from an
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extremely isolated uh I would say hedonistic sunny but maybe semi-medioca city like uh semi
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if you don't want to be untied no no lovely place to sit with a beer
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Perth is a great place to sit with a beer and gaze out over the waves of the Indian Ocean but it's
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uh it doesn't it doesn't attract the world's best and brightest unless you're a minor if you're in
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mining correct then you're it's your home but how have you found the experience of living in New York
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well I'm a cartoonist in a comedian so I uh yeah my parents are thrilled uh so I had a I had a
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very tough time living in Perth trying to make that my full-time gig as a you know any anyone in
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the creative arts will tell you you know anywhere in Australia really that it's a tough slog um doing
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it as your only thing um but in Perth which I love I really do love Perth I'm going back for Christmas
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I love it uh but you're right it is a great place to be a baby and have a baby and not a lot in
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between because if you really are a young and you you have energy and enthusiasm to do a thing
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as the Lord Mayor will tell you there there is this insane just brain drain to the East Coast
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or overseas you know because I want to you know but if you have that inclination you can't really
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do much this so I will say this um to answer your question New York is like drinking from a fire
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hose versus living in Perth um uh the the good thing about Perth is you can kind of make your
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mistakes while no one's watching so to speak so you you can kind of hone your craft you can
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like you got a warper and be an actor you can you know do your study as an artist or a whatever it
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is in a very small enclosed as you say the most isolated city in the world um and then when you're
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ready to you know sort of meet the big wide world you sort of come in with a lot of practice and
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mistakes behind you so they're like oh what what the hell do you come from you know you didn't you
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want to hear a minute ago well how do you know how to do all this stuff already so that is
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actually an advantage and I mean I felt the same way I'm talking to realize that about coming from
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Australia to the to the United States as well I guess Perth Perth to the East Coast of Australia is
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probably akin to Australia to the United States in the sense that like all of a sudden
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casting agents and agents and people who sort of thought that they knew the pool of people in
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New York were like oh who's this in fact I remember my agent you just reminded me I've completely
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forgotten this for 10 years but my first agent in New York was like it's extremely rare for people
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to find someone who is both completely new and experienced and that's what they get with an
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non-American like normally new people have no experience but here you are you have experience
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from Australia you know what you're doing and you're completely novel which is a great
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right point when you're coming into a new market yeah I think that's true I think you're quite right
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and that hasn't really changed anyone who does come here fully formed does get kind of like oh wow
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where'd you come from yeah and and I I did have unfortunately I've got I've had a just a litany
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of bad luck with that sort of thing like my agent died of COVID in the pandemic and then I know
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it was pretty bad and then I got a new agency and they told me that all the Aussies fled
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in the pandemic so I was one of very few left so that's in some ways that's very good and in some
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ways I'm like oh wow really that's kind of depressing the last man standing the last
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Australia yeah it's like I am legend yeah yeah exactly why don't you like the president of
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like the Grand Poo bar of like cartooning international globo cough globo I was in charge of
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globo cough for many years I am what was that the national president of the national
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captain society yeah Australian customization and then the national
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cartridges yeah and and I mean what fascinates me about your career Jason is that like every one
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who produces content in this day and age is constantly bouncing around trying to find what the
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new platform is on which to express themselves and sort of dancing to the tune of whatever tech
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company is incentivizing them to either maybe it's going to be live video maybe it's going to be
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you know streaming or whatever it is and you know some people put all their eggs in one basket
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and then all of a sudden vine no longer exists and everybody's out of work but like clearly the
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lamest and most uncool format for content creation would be an old school cartoon strip that used
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to be printed on you know sliced up trees and delivered to people's houses in their daily
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newspaper and yet you make that work like what are what are cartoons in the 21st century?
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cartoons in the 21st century are what they were when they started which is dangerous
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because they transcend language they transcend language barriers because they images for the most
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part um and that means you can sort of transmit an idea or a view or a perspective or a
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or you know galvanize a movement without anyone having to understand your language
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and it's the reason that visual language online is so powerful so memes are obviously viral you
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know anytime there's something visual that really just like encapsulates an idea or a thought or
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a you know a zeitgeist it just it just catches fire and goes viral more so than like a thousand
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wood think piece in the Atlantic um just because it's so much easier to digest and a cartoon has
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always been there um the trick is that now cartoonists are contending with two pretty big um I want
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to say bricks that have been dropped on our head one is the algorithm it doesn't like static content
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anymore it loves video and two is censorship on the left and the right um certainly right now it's
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on the right um there is always a sense in any uh country in the world that when people start to
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think outside of the orthodoxy um of the government or the culture of the day um and it's being
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driven by um a parrot like a satirist or a cartoonist or a comedian or something like that
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they're very quick to clamp down on that voice and it happens it's it's as reflickable as anything
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it goes all the way back hundreds of years um the internet being what it is and I saw bouncing
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around from you know vine to twitter to tiktok to the instagram to topstack and all these things
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um it really is sort of us just desperately sort of scrambling to keep uh you know
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mouths above the waterline to stay alive um because yeah as you say i mean dead trees uh that
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industry is done um frankly and it's sad but um but it's true i was in newspapers for nearly 20
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years uh started doing editorial cartoons in newspapers and i absolutely loved it i loved the
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ink on my hands but i have to confess those days are done and i think substack and these sort of
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live streaming things that you and i are doing now and that i do in my substack are kind of
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i feel like it's just a natural evolution i guess um but yeah the way that i think is visual so
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any idea i have i try to distill it visually before i try and articulate it bugle
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i understand the the distillation of an idea visually from an artist's perspective wanting to
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portray some the images of something but the other component of cartoons obviously is the
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dialogue and the point as well certainly in a strip on it right so yeah what is the how do you
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get an idea or a joke or a point down to a point of concession that it's so tight
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that it can be represented in the context of a cartoon that's honestly the riddle every cartoon
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is solved it's the same it's it's one of those puzzles that we have to contend with it's word
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economy it's uh directing the audience's attention it's directing people's brains toward a perspective
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or an idea such that they can comprehend it and then maybe even ask questions about whether they
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think they agree or disagree more often than not the best cartoons don't um necessarily slam
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an idea uh using words um if they need to use words they do um but often it just starts a conversation
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it's similar to this i mean i it it pushes back on an idea such that you test the rigor of the idea
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um and and check that we're all in agreeance on you know the the the provenance of the idea or
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just even the the the the the structure of it um i think a lot of cartoonists i'm i'm i'm biased
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but i genuinely think the best cartoonists in the world are Australian um not myself excluded
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i mean like pat olefront um i think is probably one of the greatest cartoonists who have ever lived
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he's still around um Paul Rigby um i think there there are brilliant uh comic strip cartoonists
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who have come out of Australia as well Gary Clark Tony Lopez i think there are political
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minds that just happen to learn to use drawing as they're conduit for their ideas and for their
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it's like they they could have been a colonist but they became a cartoonist and they are just as
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incisive as the as the people who write uh but they have to be able to distill all those ideas visually
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in one panel instead of a thousand words yeah it read that's interesting i mean it it sounds when
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you say it not dissimilar to radio in the sense that there is uh in that brevity is like the only
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thing that you're really working with and i started out doing satirical comedy sketches uh and
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impersonating politicians and writing those sketches and that taught me that if you've only got
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60 seconds to make a point i mean in fact political cartoons from the newspapers were a great
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inspiration because i could just steal some of the ideas from them and then write them into the
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sketches as well because often they would put their finger on some particular aspect of political
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hypocrisy or something that i can then flesh out um but it's a great i think it is something that
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we are at risk of losing in the deluge of content where we can just ramble for an hour here and
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there's no real requirement for us to be like careful and concise and uh professional in precisely
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what we say and how we say it we can spitball and there's a lot of the world's full of spitballing
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at the moment even from like the present of the United States you know it's just like flying things
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out instead of take time to curate your perfect little work of art and say exactly what you say
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in the way that you say it the challenge of doing that is that then how do you not get paralyzed by
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perfectionism when you have to get the thing out and for people who don't understand what you were
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doing when you were a daily cartoonist i mean you were handed the keys to the longest running and
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most important cartoon in Australia which was a century old thing uh and that was syndicated all
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over the world into like the Bangkok post and all these different you know the Hindustan times in
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India and all over the world there would be this cartoon strip called ginger mags which was
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around since the 1920s and when you were in your early 20s you inherited it from the person who was
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doing it who died and so then every single day you have to come up with this thing
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how do you make it both like perfectly concise and also meet your deadline
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it's one of the most difficult balancing acts i've ever had to do and and uh the trick is the
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build systems i mean truly um you're always panicking as soon as you hand in your seven strips for
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the week there's no relaxing it's just countdown to when you panic about the next seven um and i
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you know there's all these weird little tricks and tips and things that everyone gives you and
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then you try and they don't work and then one thing does work and then it stops working after two
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weeks um that the conciseness is absolutely as you say it's similar to radio you really have to
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get to the point as quickly as possible you realize that people in the way that as they say you know
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you decide not to read Garfield after you've already read Garfield you know it's so easy to
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to read that you can't even accidentally not read it um it's it's the kind of thing at the kind
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of skill honing that down and just cutting out all of the flap and getting straight to the quick
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it's the kind of skill that takes a long long time and to be honest with you i did i was not qualified
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to do it when i first took it over i felt very i felt like a real dilatant i i did not think i
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was qualified to do it um but it's a it's a skill that you learn out of mad panic i mean i'm sure
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you're the same with radio where you learn on the air you you make your mistakes kind of all
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people are watching in a in a way you um you figure out the little things that do work and then
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double down on those and there's a point with uh certainly because i was doing political cartoons and
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i was doing the comic strip the comic strip was apolitical the political cartoons were very political
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and so i kind of had these i had this bipolar kind of these dual personalities um just by dog by the
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way uh these dual personalities he just wants to say i uh where i i had to change gears so it's like
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i had a persona you know when you were when you were doing sketch you probably had to
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re purpose yourself into these different in-person impressions that you had and and you kind of
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become this persona i was doing that with the comic strip i was writing and drawing through for one
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particular voice and because as you say it was a legacy strip it had a it had a style guide and
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it had a voice and then i had my political stuff which was me and uh yeah it's a real bipolar
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existence and as you say getting down to just what needs to be said and nothing more is extraordinarily
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difficult and uh same goes for comedy uh i know will mention it the other day it's one of the
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hardest things to do is just to be concise as i was not with this answer i mean that sense that you
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had when you were handed the you know the comic strip at the you know at what you you seem to be
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too young an age then you were not ready for it and you were an imposter and you weren't qualified
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for it i mean i think everybody has that sense don't they until they realize that actually
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nobody is qualified and everybody is just winging it to different degrees right there's no there is
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nobody you know when you're when you're in your teens you have this illusion that the world is
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run by judicious prudent people who know something that you don't and then in your 20s you realize
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oh everyone's the kid everyone's a kid wearing grown up suits and just you know the whole things
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held together with duct tape and twine no one's no there's nothing making up as they go along yeah
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so so why not me yeah i mean when you're in your 20s that's at your early 20s you think everyone
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else hasn't figured out and they're an expert and they're absolutely adapted everything and
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yeah that's what kind of brought on the the notion that i was not at all qualified um but yeah
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there's no better way to find out than to do it you know and i did do you still have that
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you know i have that with writing now i write on substagnally every day and i am not a writer
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Josh i'm not i'm a cartoonist i draw and i can do comedy that's my my two only employable skills
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a stand-up and cutturning uh too deeply unemployable skills uh but i do think that when i write
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i have enormous um imposition drum purely because i read a lot of other writers like i review
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i read sam harris i read you know these other people who have made writing there you know this
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sort of touched on this sort of skill that they've really honed over many many decades and so i
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do feel like i'm just like you know i'm in the kiddie pool in the right world i mean yeah i
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think every i still think that so many people feel that way i don't feel like i know what i'm doing
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when i'm writing but i know that uh as long as i just cut out all the words that aren't necessary
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and try to get to the point of what it is that i'm trying to say with a bit of levity then it'll
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end up being okay uh the the challenge then becomes are you producing the content whatever it is
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in order to try to get something like are you trying to uh at the risk of you know using
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horial cliches like audience capture or like chasing uh yeah clicks or something like that
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then the question becomes like what am i producing and who's it for and what what's it for is it so
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that i can get this next thing that i want to notch on my belt or is it to give people a laugh or
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is it to make them think or is it to increase my follow account like how do you think do you
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go through that checklist do you do that consciously or subconsciously subconsciously i mean i work hard
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to not produce content on the basis of metrics and uh clicks and things like that because i don't
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i don't think that's why people come to this show uh right so i think you have to work against it
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if you're not going to get i think that's it yeah i think it's a point of differentiation with you
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particularly is that you notice when everyone starts to slip into audience capture and start reading
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the comments and and then you know start producing these sort of derivative versions of the best
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performing posts um versus people who aren't afraid to celebrate the unsubscribed um you know i
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think you're in a field of people who are maybe you know as as comfortable as is to have a big
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audience it's i think more uncomfortable probably to compromise your integrity by just
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playing to the playing to the crowd um and i i always like they didn't have integrity in the first
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place so they don't have to portray their integrity like you know what i mean like some people are
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just like yeah you want me to have integrity i'll have integrity well what do you want me to say
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i'll say whatever you want um just like it sounds like a groucher box
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exactly that's right um but what how do you how do you what metrics do you use to know whether or
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not you're doing a good job so i used to do the same thing of of tracking metrics and looking at
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numbers and checking unsubscribes and all that stuff i stopped looking at that about two years ago
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and i turned off any notification if anyone subscribing or unsubscribing um and really just started to
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go well what's the worst that could happen i lose all the subscribe like what's the worst case
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scenario and every time i pushed that button to go all right let's try it it didn't happen the
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thing that i thought would happen when i said the thing didn't happen in fact the opposite happened
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they doubled down because all of a sudden they're like always i didn't think you'd say that and then
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i think with with substacking particular it's it's a great way to find your people but it's also a good
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way to keep a community of people who seem to enjoy or certainly for me and i wonder what it's like
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for you but for me it's people who they're not subscribing necessarily to the content they're
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subscribing to you they're here just to listen to you to watch you to breed you um and i i didn't
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know that when i first started and used that i started to use that a long time ago and was just
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playing to the crowd but then also terrified to upset anybody lest i lose subscribers and i just
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liked seeing the graph go up to you know like seeing that line and then i just got to a point i
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don't know what change so i just kind of snapped and went i'm just gonna save the things i want to
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say in my voice and draw the things i want to draw in the way i've drawn because after years of
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drawing in someone else's style and writing in someone else's voice i was like it's and it sounds
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morbid but it's like if i die tomorrow what am i gonna regret i'm gonna regret not saying the things
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i wanted to say in the way i wanted to say them so i just kind of started doing that and the
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graph went like this yeah it was insane yeah as wild it was counterintuitive but that's what happened
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what do you think you were tapping into that i think it was a combination of just vulnerability and
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just being very authentic very real i i wasn't sure good coding anything i wasn't trying to
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make myself look good certainly i mean my reflex as a comedian is to slip on my own banana
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PLA i'm i'm the first to you know take myself down a notch before anyone else but but also i
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i wasn't sparing any i i took my prisoners it was it was very much i i'm gonna tell you what i
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think about the things i think without hedging or without sort of saying well listen i know some
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people like this but here's what i think it was just here's what i think see me in the comments
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yeah um what do i say in the comments you can argue i'll be over here uh yeah
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stringing my decorate uh it's interesting Jason you saying that when you had to be fulfilling a
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role on behalf of another institution that that was tricky because it's both constraining
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to have to have the impromarter of this centuries old like strip that you're now
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producing but it's also i imagine an ego boost in the sense that i am now the sort of the voice
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behind the curtain the puppet master of this thing that i didn't create but that i'm now a
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custodian of uh i mean i got a glimpse of that when i had a radio show on the public broadcaster here
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where yeah the downside was i can't say whatever i believe but the upside is like i'm the voice of
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the public broadcaster like when i'm talking is this it's this institution that's yeah talking
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that i'm talking on behalf of i'm much happier now that i can say whatever the fuck i want but i'm
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also i also am sad to have lost like now i am just a guy with a podcast who's talking you know what i
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mean there isn't like i don't have a green check mark of like authority that the institution that
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a revered institution is bestowing on me how do you wrestle with that if at all i yeah it's a really
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interesting insight because get a humans well if you listen to this much of the episode then
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you must enjoy it presumably unless you're just releasing from masochistic reasons uh so you
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00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:26.640
should listen to the rest of it and the way you do that is by subscribing to the premium feed where
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you not only get to hear the rest of this delightful conversation and trust me oh it gets better
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than what you just heard uh but you also get to hear no ads zero ads and previously up until now
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you had to go to the old sub stack to do that and follow me on sub stack and add one more platform
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take care
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Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas one of the most dangerous and uncomfortable
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conversations that independently employed creative artists have with themselves in this climate is
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how far they should push the envelope how far is too far how self expressed can we be how authentic
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can we be versus how much should we count out the opinions of our peers the opinions of our leaders
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and the mandates of the algorithms that drive so much of our income today's guest is arguably the
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most successful cartoonist in the world he's an Aussie who lives in New York City and at the age
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of 23 he was handed the keys to Australia's longest running most iconic most famous
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newspaper comedy comic strip if you think of things like Dilbert and Dennis the menace and
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Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield and peanuts and so on in Australia we had ginger megs and Jason
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wrote and drew ginger megs for almost 20 years it was syndicated all over the world he moved to
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New York City and became a big deal in American cartooning as well he ended up the president
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of the National Cartoonists Society essentially the chief grand pubert of satirical cartoonists
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in the United States so how do you sustain a career independently on substack when your craft is
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so seemingly old-fashioned as writing and illustrating a comic strip Jason joined me for a substack
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live on the day that Zoran Mamdani became the mayor elect of New York City so I wanted his thoughts
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about politics about satire about the vibe of the city with Mamdani coming in about how you
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construct an authentic creative life in this crazy world of ours and resist the forces of
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censorship from the powerful and from your peers this is a premium episode so you will get a
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healthy and interesting chunk of it whether you pay or not but the heart and the meat of the
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conversation where we throw around our ideas about creativity and authenticity and independence
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of thought that mostly comes after a paywall so if you're a paid subscriber and this episode
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doesn't run for well over an hour then you need to hop over to your premium feed you're listening
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to the wrong one if you're a free subscriber and you want to hear all of every episode because
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roughly every second episode of this show is paywall halfway through you can click to subscribe
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in apple podcasts or in Spotify or better yet to get all of our live streams and all of our
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other goodies at uncomfortable conversations dot substack dot com I hope you enjoy as much as I did
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the one and only Jason Jefffield I unfortunately stood Jason up a couple of days ago and
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the I told him that I would tell him why because in my defense Jason I was quite busy this week
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there was a lockdown okay Papa had things to do one of which was I was flying down to Canberra on
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the day that I was supposed to talk to you the day before yesterday to moderate a panel event with
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four parliamentarians former cabinet minister head of the national party in the center you know
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important people about getting money out of politics and I was a little underprepared and so I had
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that had to do that and then I had to sort of prep for your interview and I also had another
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thing that I was doing that day and then I was going to have to fly down and I hadn't had much
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sleep for the past two nights and so that was the context so I thought before I took to Jason
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I'll get up early I'll get up at five I'll have a couple of hours to do a bit of writing for the
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thing before coming in and talking to you um so I creep downstairs my eight-year-old twins
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are asleep I get my morning vitamin pills together and I'm packing my stuff together my daughter
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comes in because I've woken her up she's standing there in the dark I'm not paying much attention
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I'm a bit bleary I'd I take my pills and I go to pack my bag and it's very very very rare
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that I am in possession of hardcore sleeping pills but if I have a big gig and I'm going to be
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amped up and I've got an early flight the following day and I know I'm going to get back to my
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hotel room at 11 p.m full of adrenaline and I have to get up at six I'll take a sleeping pill and
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not myself out the sleeping pill was what I took at five in the morning and I took it by mistake
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thinking that it was just a vitamin pill in the dark and then I was like oh shit you can't you
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can't drive if you stay awake when you take these things it says be aware that you will go into a
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fugue state and you will babble like a madman and you will have no recollection of whatever you
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said so I can't do a sub stack live stream where I just start railing against the Jews or something
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I wish you did it would have been wild it would have been incredible I would have just been
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off my face so I was like I mean I just have to go to bed and like
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yes I went back to bed and slept for five hours you were on lute against that's what I was rolling Jason
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rolling oh you I mean that's pretty impressive so the fact that you stayed awake as long as you
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did is very impressive I just it was it was rough so just if you if you're in possession of
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you know psychoactive pharmaceuticals then be careful with them because you don't want to
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maybe put them in a different state you would think you would think that I mean the thing is they
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were in a totally different packet and I even popped it out of the I it was I picked up the blister
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pack to put in my bag absent mindedly popped the pill out of it and then just took it right so
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Sigmund Freud would say that when it comes to the mind there are no mistakes and I was actually
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subliminally saying zeps you got too much on today mate yeah screw this it's the deck have a
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light down buddy too much going on I mean there's getting dressed in the dark and then there's
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getting blushing there's getting drugged drugging yourself I mean it is although I feel good about
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myself that the hardest drug that I had in the house was the sleeping pill like you know you're
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boring in middle age right the hardest drug that you can put your hands on is an ambient or whatever
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how's are you in New York now I am in New York now I'm in your old stomping ground yes it's it's just
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the way you left it but with a new mayor yeah I know I mean I still go there about three or four
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times a year when I can but not under Mamdani town have things have things shut down already are
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the grocery stores closed in anticipation of his free state owned grocery stores yeah have the
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other months three years getting in yeah of course all the buses are free people are refusing to
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pay people are going into these state runs grocery stores and getting free apples it's wild you wouldn't
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believe it you wouldn't recognize a place are you able to vote to you a citizen or no yeah I mean you
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are citizen now I panicked because Trump blocked me on Twitter and I thought I should probably become
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a citizen because I'm now clearly on a list yes I mean I always thought that when I was a permanent
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resident and had a green card I was like I mean you're basically a citizen like the only differences
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that you can't vote how naive I was not apparently yeah yeah I that was the panic that set in was
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that I I noticed some people on oh ones and he be ones getting shunted out under the last
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administration so under the first Trump administration so I was like oh I want an EP one that
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should probably become a naturalized citizen although I did learn the word denaturalization
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this week which panicked the hell out of me that's a thing well presumably that's
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means a person normally would be giving up the citizenship by choice wouldn't they when they
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denaturalize or are you saying that people can be stripped of their citizenship yeah that's what
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it usually means and now it means a presidential ability to strip one of their citizenship if he
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signs one of those big steakhouse menus with a Sharpie yeah that can't be legal that can't be
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conscious no it's not at all but the time that it takes to challenge it in court is longer than
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it would take to enact the actual things so they're already out by the time it's challenged it's
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yeah that's the play that's incredible I mean the city country who does the country belong to
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if not its citizens like when the constitution says we the people it's talking about the citizens
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of the country you can't just have no idea we the people in the White House you've you've misread
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that document I see ban and he'll tell you I thought it was the people on the ground the voters the
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citizens okay I know you Josh sorry sorry it's Stephen Miller means whoever Stephen Miller says
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is we the people yeah it's how me the people yeah how have you found the run up to the election like
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what has the mood but what first of all explain to people who don't know you what kind of circles
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you swim in what your interests are and who you are because sure I I am an Aussie in New York City
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I've been a cartoonist for 20 years I work for the New Yorker and I've done work for Mad Magazine
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and syndicated comic strips the Aussies might know me as the cartoonist for Ginger Megs for 16 years
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but I do political cartoons I've done political cartoons for
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yeah like 20 something years started in Perth in Frio doing local politics and then work my way
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out to doing national Aussie politics you might have seen me talking with Mike Bowers on talking
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on insiders for many years and then I moved to New York 11 years ago so the lead up in 20
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a question the lead up to the I've never seen anything like it the lead up to the mayoral election
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not only did it force people to learn what a mayor can do what it was what they're where their
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authority begins and ends versus the governor but also people actually really started to young
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people especially started to really engage and got very very intense so all of a sudden you actually
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had to say in the way that you might say in a federal election how you are going to vote people
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where their politics on their sleeve here it's not it's not a faux pas like it is in Australia to
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tell people everyone how you vote right that's interesting I mean more in a local election that
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I had been at a national level because I think that New Yorkers who voted for Trump have always
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felt bashful about talking about it they do now yeah it's it's an interesting thing that I've
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never noticed before this is this is basically like Trump was on the ballot that's how it felt
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it felt like Trump was on the ballot and this was a big protest vote against him that's how it
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felt right right and the three people who voted for Andrew Cuomo were the people who were voting
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for Donald Trump with Cuomo as as his proxy essentially you know what for all his foibles he
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actually did get remarkably close for a minute a minute right yeah I can't imagine that it was
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particularly helpful in New York for Donald Trump to throw his support behind the independent
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candidate rather than the Republican that Republican dude was interesting what the hell was his
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deal yeah I mean I think his whole life he was born to just want to be the mayor of New York also
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he needs a job yeah it is funny because the Republicans just produce these characters you know like in
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the way that it's just like an SNL sketch they just this just they just barrel out of the out of
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the wings and you're like is this and then they've got this whole backstory and an accent and an
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at and a costume and a you know I don't understand why he didn't just it doesn't make any sense if
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even if he combined his votes with Cuomo he still wouldn't want which is not I mean in my brain I
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can't appreciate him exactly but in my brain the Republican candidate is wearing a beret and
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has a parrot on his shoulder correct beret yes and he's been running every single election I mean he's
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he's a career nominee as a career candidate I should say right and um he is honestly he is very
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entertaining in the debates okay and mdani mdani sense of like what he actually wants to accomplish
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in practice is is more inscrutable to me than what his vibe is right I mean like is he
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up do you expect him to be a practical mayor I I want to say yes I really want to say yes but I
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just can't in all honesty knowing how politicians operate and how the machinations of
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of this certainly government politics uh those local government uh I just can't say that is
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going to be that effective I really you know there's all these great promises he's making and
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wonderful assertions that he's making that that really are galvanizing this young generation of
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people disappointed in politics and politicians and and you know just this bottomless endless pit of
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broken promises and here's this guy who's going to come in and he's going to make everything
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right again and he's going to be a democratic socialist and he's going to do these great things
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but he's never held office he's never had to compromise he's never had to actually work
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within the machinations of this particular government he's never had to make the connections that
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a career politician someone like Brad lander or Curtis slua or you know or Cuomo have had to make
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to get things over the line so I don't know as he he may well try to get all these things done
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but he'll probably hit a bunch of brick walls because he's a kid I say that I'm 41 he's 34
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so I'm still calling on the kid but it just feels so I don't want to say I don't want to say he's
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he's a smart he's a very smart young man incredibly smart um great at campaigning but um
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as an actual mayor I don't have a confidence in him and I hate saying that I really do
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I mean the problem is that the same criticisms were made of Obama before he was president he'd
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never been an executive he hadn't run things right um and you know part of me feels like
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everyone who I talk to about Mamdani in the States is either super enthusiastic that the
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democrats are growing a spine and talking about economic justice again instead of you know a bunch
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of work issues or they're terrified that he's a communist who's going to ruin the city and
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there'll be capital flight out of the city and a death spiral of higher taxation and the city
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will become decrepit I mean I feel like maybe we just hold our breath and give him a chance
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for a little while and see like if it's if it's if it's if it's if it's we don't have a choice
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if it's impossible for a yeah I mean if it's true that it's impossible for an idealistic
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young person who's very bright to come in and get anything done that strikes me as more of an
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indictment on the way the system is set up and the way vested interests are entrenched than on
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the idealistic person coming in yeah anyone with the energy or enthusiasm to actually come in and
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want to do anything who the hell would want to get into politics now um it is you know give
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him all the rope they need you know just like let him do the thing let him try at least to do
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something um city can't get much worse than it already is um I mean it's so funny I believe
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history yeah watch my beer yeah yeah I honestly and like you I think it is more of an indictment
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on the system you know the fact that yeah yeah someone comes in and they're like hey I've got
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all these great big ideas and it's going to be interesting and it's like yeah okay all right here's
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the playbook and they're like oh I can't do any of this stuff yeah exactly yeah that's right
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I mean totally let's try to reform the port authority will it start by asking what the hell is
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the port authority like who runs the port authority what do you like you know why is there a
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port authority why is it called a foreign history is like the Pyramids yeah no one is you know
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yeah exactly like is like can we get a train can we get an actual train to JFK instead of one that
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you have to get off and get on to another train that goes to another car park that you have to
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get a monorail from like is this is this the best we can do New York you gotta go through the unions
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and the mafia you gotta know the right people you need an italian yeah exactly and you want to
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extend the subway line by like three stops and it costs the same cost as it costs you know France
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to build its entire TGD network in some GDP of Belgium yeah that's right so we'll see how he goes all
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right good luck uh Mem Donnie how have you found New York as a place to live like coming from an
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extremely isolated uh I would say hedonistic sunny but maybe semi-medioca city like uh semi
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if you don't want to be untied no no lovely place to sit with a beer
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Perth is a great place to sit with a beer and gaze out over the waves of the Indian Ocean but it's
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uh it doesn't it doesn't attract the world's best and brightest unless you're a minor if you're in
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mining correct then you're it's your home but how have you found the experience of living in New York
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well I'm a cartoonist in a comedian so I uh yeah my parents are thrilled uh so I had a I had a
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very tough time living in Perth trying to make that my full-time gig as a you know any anyone in
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the creative arts will tell you you know anywhere in Australia really that it's a tough slog um doing
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it as your only thing um but in Perth which I love I really do love Perth I'm going back for Christmas
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I love it uh but you're right it is a great place to be a baby and have a baby and not a lot in
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between because if you really are a young and you you have energy and enthusiasm to do a thing
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as the Lord Mayor will tell you there there is this insane just brain drain to the East Coast
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or overseas you know because I want to you know but if you have that inclination you can't really
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do much this so I will say this um to answer your question New York is like drinking from a fire
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hose versus living in Perth um uh the the good thing about Perth is you can kind of make your
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mistakes while no one's watching so to speak so you you can kind of hone your craft you can
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like you got a warper and be an actor you can you know do your study as an artist or a whatever it
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is in a very small enclosed as you say the most isolated city in the world um and then when you're
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ready to you know sort of meet the big wide world you sort of come in with a lot of practice and
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mistakes behind you so they're like oh what what the hell do you come from you know you didn't you
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want to hear a minute ago well how do you know how to do all this stuff already so that is
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actually an advantage and I mean I felt the same way I'm talking to realize that about coming from
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Australia to the to the United States as well I guess Perth Perth to the East Coast of Australia is
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probably akin to Australia to the United States in the sense that like all of a sudden
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casting agents and agents and people who sort of thought that they knew the pool of people in
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New York were like oh who's this in fact I remember my agent you just reminded me I've completely
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forgotten this for 10 years but my first agent in New York was like it's extremely rare for people
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to find someone who is both completely new and experienced and that's what they get with an
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non-American like normally new people have no experience but here you are you have experience
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from Australia you know what you're doing and you're completely novel which is a great
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right point when you're coming into a new market yeah I think that's true I think you're quite right
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and that hasn't really changed anyone who does come here fully formed does get kind of like oh wow
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where'd you come from yeah and and I I did have unfortunately I've got I've had a just a litany
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of bad luck with that sort of thing like my agent died of COVID in the pandemic and then I know
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it was pretty bad and then I got a new agency and they told me that all the Aussies fled
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in the pandemic so I was one of very few left so that's in some ways that's very good and in some
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ways I'm like oh wow really that's kind of depressing the last man standing the last
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Australia yeah it's like I am legend yeah yeah exactly why don't you like the president of
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like the Grand Poo bar of like cartooning international globo cough globo I was in charge of
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globo cough for many years I am what was that the national president of the national
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captain society yeah Australian customization and then the national
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cartridges yeah and and I mean what fascinates me about your career Jason is that like every one
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who produces content in this day and age is constantly bouncing around trying to find what the
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new platform is on which to express themselves and sort of dancing to the tune of whatever tech
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company is incentivizing them to either maybe it's going to be live video maybe it's going to be
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you know streaming or whatever it is and you know some people put all their eggs in one basket
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and then all of a sudden vine no longer exists and everybody's out of work but like clearly the
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lamest and most uncool format for content creation would be an old school cartoon strip that used
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to be printed on you know sliced up trees and delivered to people's houses in their daily
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newspaper and yet you make that work like what are what are cartoons in the 21st century?
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cartoons in the 21st century are what they were when they started which is dangerous
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because they transcend language they transcend language barriers because they images for the most
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part um and that means you can sort of transmit an idea or a view or a perspective or a
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or you know galvanize a movement without anyone having to understand your language
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and it's the reason that visual language online is so powerful so memes are obviously viral you
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know anytime there's something visual that really just like encapsulates an idea or a thought or
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a you know a zeitgeist it just it just catches fire and goes viral more so than like a thousand
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wood think piece in the Atlantic um just because it's so much easier to digest and a cartoon has
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always been there um the trick is that now cartoonists are contending with two pretty big um I want
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to say bricks that have been dropped on our head one is the algorithm it doesn't like static content
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anymore it loves video and two is censorship on the left and the right um certainly right now it's
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on the right um there is always a sense in any uh country in the world that when people start to
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think outside of the orthodoxy um of the government or the culture of the day um and it's being
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driven by um a parrot like a satirist or a cartoonist or a comedian or something like that
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they're very quick to clamp down on that voice and it happens it's it's as reflickable as anything
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it goes all the way back hundreds of years um the internet being what it is and I saw bouncing
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around from you know vine to twitter to tiktok to the instagram to topstack and all these things
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um it really is sort of us just desperately sort of scrambling to keep uh you know
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mouths above the waterline to stay alive um because yeah as you say i mean dead trees uh that
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industry is done um frankly and it's sad but um but it's true i was in newspapers for nearly 20
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years uh started doing editorial cartoons in newspapers and i absolutely loved it i loved the
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ink on my hands but i have to confess those days are done and i think substack and these sort of
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live streaming things that you and i are doing now and that i do in my substack are kind of
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i feel like it's just a natural evolution i guess um but yeah the way that i think is visual so
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any idea i have i try to distill it visually before i try and articulate it bugle
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i understand the the distillation of an idea visually from an artist's perspective wanting to
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portray some the images of something but the other component of cartoons obviously is the
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dialogue and the point as well certainly in a strip on it right so yeah what is the how do you
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get an idea or a joke or a point down to a point of concession that it's so tight
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that it can be represented in the context of a cartoon that's honestly the riddle every cartoon
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is solved it's the same it's it's one of those puzzles that we have to contend with it's word
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economy it's uh directing the audience's attention it's directing people's brains toward a perspective
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or an idea such that they can comprehend it and then maybe even ask questions about whether they
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think they agree or disagree more often than not the best cartoons don't um necessarily slam
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an idea uh using words um if they need to use words they do um but often it just starts a conversation
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it's similar to this i mean i it it pushes back on an idea such that you test the rigor of the idea
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um and and check that we're all in agreeance on you know the the the provenance of the idea or
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just even the the the the the structure of it um i think a lot of cartoonists i'm i'm i'm biased
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but i genuinely think the best cartoonists in the world are Australian um not myself excluded
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i mean like pat olefront um i think is probably one of the greatest cartoonists who have ever lived
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he's still around um Paul Rigby um i think there there are brilliant uh comic strip cartoonists
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who have come out of Australia as well Gary Clark Tony Lopez i think there are political
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minds that just happen to learn to use drawing as they're conduit for their ideas and for their
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it's like they they could have been a colonist but they became a cartoonist and they are just as
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incisive as the as the people who write uh but they have to be able to distill all those ideas visually
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in one panel instead of a thousand words yeah it read that's interesting i mean it it sounds when
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you say it not dissimilar to radio in the sense that there is uh in that brevity is like the only
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thing that you're really working with and i started out doing satirical comedy sketches uh and
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impersonating politicians and writing those sketches and that taught me that if you've only got
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60 seconds to make a point i mean in fact political cartoons from the newspapers were a great
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inspiration because i could just steal some of the ideas from them and then write them into the
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sketches as well because often they would put their finger on some particular aspect of political
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hypocrisy or something that i can then flesh out um but it's a great i think it is something that
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we are at risk of losing in the deluge of content where we can just ramble for an hour here and
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there's no real requirement for us to be like careful and concise and uh professional in precisely
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what we say and how we say it we can spitball and there's a lot of the world's full of spitballing
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at the moment even from like the present of the United States you know it's just like flying things
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out instead of take time to curate your perfect little work of art and say exactly what you say
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in the way that you say it the challenge of doing that is that then how do you not get paralyzed by
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perfectionism when you have to get the thing out and for people who don't understand what you were
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doing when you were a daily cartoonist i mean you were handed the keys to the longest running and
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most important cartoon in Australia which was a century old thing uh and that was syndicated all
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over the world into like the Bangkok post and all these different you know the Hindustan times in
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India and all over the world there would be this cartoon strip called ginger mags which was
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around since the 1920s and when you were in your early 20s you inherited it from the person who was
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doing it who died and so then every single day you have to come up with this thing
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how do you make it both like perfectly concise and also meet your deadline
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it's one of the most difficult balancing acts i've ever had to do and and uh the trick is the
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build systems i mean truly um you're always panicking as soon as you hand in your seven strips for
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the week there's no relaxing it's just countdown to when you panic about the next seven um and i
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you know there's all these weird little tricks and tips and things that everyone gives you and
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then you try and they don't work and then one thing does work and then it stops working after two
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weeks um that the conciseness is absolutely as you say it's similar to radio you really have to
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get to the point as quickly as possible you realize that people in the way that as they say you know
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you decide not to read Garfield after you've already read Garfield you know it's so easy to
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to read that you can't even accidentally not read it um it's it's the kind of thing at the kind
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of skill honing that down and just cutting out all of the flap and getting straight to the quick
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it's the kind of skill that takes a long long time and to be honest with you i did i was not qualified
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to do it when i first took it over i felt very i felt like a real dilatant i i did not think i
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was qualified to do it um but it's a it's a skill that you learn out of mad panic i mean i'm sure
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you're the same with radio where you learn on the air you you make your mistakes kind of all
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people are watching in a in a way you um you figure out the little things that do work and then
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double down on those and there's a point with uh certainly because i was doing political cartoons and
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i was doing the comic strip the comic strip was apolitical the political cartoons were very political
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and so i kind of had these i had this bipolar kind of these dual personalities um just by dog by the
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way uh these dual personalities he just wants to say i uh where i i had to change gears so it's like
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i had a persona you know when you were when you were doing sketch you probably had to
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re purpose yourself into these different in-person impressions that you had and and you kind of
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become this persona i was doing that with the comic strip i was writing and drawing through for one
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particular voice and because as you say it was a legacy strip it had a it had a style guide and
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it had a voice and then i had my political stuff which was me and uh yeah it's a real bipolar
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existence and as you say getting down to just what needs to be said and nothing more is extraordinarily
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difficult and uh same goes for comedy uh i know will mention it the other day it's one of the
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hardest things to do is just to be concise as i was not with this answer i mean that sense that you
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had when you were handed the you know the comic strip at the you know at what you you seem to be
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too young an age then you were not ready for it and you were an imposter and you weren't qualified
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for it i mean i think everybody has that sense don't they until they realize that actually
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nobody is qualified and everybody is just winging it to different degrees right there's no there is
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nobody you know when you're when you're in your teens you have this illusion that the world is
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run by judicious prudent people who know something that you don't and then in your 20s you realize
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oh everyone's the kid everyone's a kid wearing grown up suits and just you know the whole things
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held together with duct tape and twine no one's no there's nothing making up as they go along yeah
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so so why not me yeah i mean when you're in your 20s that's at your early 20s you think everyone
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else hasn't figured out and they're an expert and they're absolutely adapted everything and
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yeah that's what kind of brought on the the notion that i was not at all qualified um but yeah
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there's no better way to find out than to do it you know and i did do you still have that
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you know i have that with writing now i write on substagnally every day and i am not a writer
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Josh i'm not i'm a cartoonist i draw and i can do comedy that's my my two only employable skills
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a stand-up and cutturning uh too deeply unemployable skills uh but i do think that when i write
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i have enormous um imposition drum purely because i read a lot of other writers like i review
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i read sam harris i read you know these other people who have made writing there you know this
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sort of touched on this sort of skill that they've really honed over many many decades and so i
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do feel like i'm just like you know i'm in the kiddie pool in the right world i mean yeah i
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think every i still think that so many people feel that way i don't feel like i know what i'm doing
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when i'm writing but i know that uh as long as i just cut out all the words that aren't necessary
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and try to get to the point of what it is that i'm trying to say with a bit of levity then it'll
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end up being okay uh the the challenge then becomes are you producing the content whatever it is
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in order to try to get something like are you trying to uh at the risk of you know using
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horial cliches like audience capture or like chasing uh yeah clicks or something like that
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then the question becomes like what am i producing and who's it for and what what's it for is it so
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that i can get this next thing that i want to notch on my belt or is it to give people a laugh or
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is it to make them think or is it to increase my follow account like how do you think do you
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go through that checklist do you do that consciously or subconsciously subconsciously i mean i work hard
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to not produce content on the basis of metrics and uh clicks and things like that because i don't
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i don't think that's why people come to this show uh right so i think you have to work against it
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if you're not going to get i think that's it yeah i think it's a point of differentiation with you
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particularly is that you notice when everyone starts to slip into audience capture and start reading
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the comments and and then you know start producing these sort of derivative versions of the best
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performing posts um versus people who aren't afraid to celebrate the unsubscribed um you know i
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think you're in a field of people who are maybe you know as as comfortable as is to have a big
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audience it's i think more uncomfortable probably to compromise your integrity by just
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playing to the playing to the crowd um and i i always like they didn't have integrity in the first
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place so they don't have to portray their integrity like you know what i mean like some people are
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just like yeah you want me to have integrity i'll have integrity well what do you want me to say
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i'll say whatever you want um just like it sounds like a groucher box
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exactly that's right um but what how do you how do you what metrics do you use to know whether or
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not you're doing a good job so i used to do the same thing of of tracking metrics and looking at
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numbers and checking unsubscribes and all that stuff i stopped looking at that about two years ago
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and i turned off any notification if anyone subscribing or unsubscribing um and really just started to
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go well what's the worst that could happen i lose all the subscribe like what's the worst case
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scenario and every time i pushed that button to go all right let's try it it didn't happen the
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thing that i thought would happen when i said the thing didn't happen in fact the opposite happened
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they doubled down because all of a sudden they're like always i didn't think you'd say that and then
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i think with with substacking particular it's it's a great way to find your people but it's also a good
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way to keep a community of people who seem to enjoy or certainly for me and i wonder what it's like
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for you but for me it's people who they're not subscribing necessarily to the content they're
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subscribing to you they're here just to listen to you to watch you to breed you um and i i didn't
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know that when i first started and used that i started to use that a long time ago and was just
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playing to the crowd but then also terrified to upset anybody lest i lose subscribers and i just
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liked seeing the graph go up to you know like seeing that line and then i just got to a point i
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don't know what change so i just kind of snapped and went i'm just gonna save the things i want to
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say in my voice and draw the things i want to draw in the way i've drawn because after years of
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drawing in someone else's style and writing in someone else's voice i was like it's and it sounds
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morbid but it's like if i die tomorrow what am i gonna regret i'm gonna regret not saying the things
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i wanted to say in the way i wanted to say them so i just kind of started doing that and the
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graph went like this yeah it was insane yeah as wild it was counterintuitive but that's what happened
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what do you think you were tapping into that i think it was a combination of just vulnerability and
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just being very authentic very real i i wasn't sure good coding anything i wasn't trying to
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make myself look good certainly i mean my reflex as a comedian is to slip on my own banana
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PLA i'm i'm the first to you know take myself down a notch before anyone else but but also i
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i wasn't sparing any i i took my prisoners it was it was very much i i'm gonna tell you what i
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think about the things i think without hedging or without sort of saying well listen i know some
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people like this but here's what i think it was just here's what i think see me in the comments
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yeah um what do i say in the comments you can argue i'll be over here uh yeah
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stringing my decorate uh it's interesting Jason you saying that when you had to be fulfilling a
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role on behalf of another institution that that was tricky because it's both constraining
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to have to have the impromarter of this centuries old like strip that you're now
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producing but it's also i imagine an ego boost in the sense that i am now the sort of the voice
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behind the curtain the puppet master of this thing that i didn't create but that i'm now a
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custodian of uh i mean i got a glimpse of that when i had a radio show on the public broadcaster here
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where yeah the downside was i can't say whatever i believe but the upside is like i'm the voice of
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the public broadcaster like when i'm talking is this it's this institution that's yeah talking
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that i'm talking on behalf of i'm much happier now that i can say whatever the fuck i want but i'm
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also i also am sad to have lost like now i am just a guy with a podcast who's talking you know what i
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mean there isn't like i don't have a green check mark of like authority that the institution that
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a revered institution is bestowing on me how do you wrestle with that if at all i yeah it's a really
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interesting insight because get a humans well if you listen to this much of the episode then
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you must enjoy it presumably unless you're just releasing from masochistic reasons uh so you
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should listen to the rest of it and the way you do that is by subscribing to the premium feed where
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you not only get to hear the rest of this delightful conversation and trust me oh it gets better
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than what you just heard uh but you also get to hear no ads zero ads and previously up until now
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you had to go to the old sub stack to do that and follow me on sub stack and add one more platform
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to your life if you're not already on sub stack uh but here's the thing we're now on apple uh premium
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podcast as well so with one click apple will just subscribe you up to the premium feed you'll be
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able to listen to the rest of this conversation right now right now right now so open up your apple
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podcasts click the old uh pay old zepsi button that's probably what it's called pay old zepsi and you
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click the button and then you uh no longer have to be a free rider you can feel like you're contributing
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to the mission of this show which is really what we're all here for better conversations uh a
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freer more freewheeling attitude towards the things that we can talk about uh a way to steal man
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our opponents and to take the most gracious approach towards disagreement that is what you're voting
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for when you vote for uncomfortable conversations by going into your apple podcasts and clicking
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subscribe uh i love you if you don't do that that's fine i'll see you the next free episode i guess
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take care
