EP. 118 — George Resch (Tank Sinatra)

Jameela [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil, a podcast that doesn’t condone violence but would like to throw all shame off the top of a very high cliff. I hope you’re okay. I’m alright, I’m still reeling, but I’m starting to channel my rage into something more productive where I can finally stop just screaming out of a pillow and figure out how to organize. And I will start to share those ways with you as soon as I have a clearer head. I’m still on quite a lot of medication from my wisdom teeth removal, so bear with. Anyway, I am excited for today’s conversation because I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it. I often bring on guests who I think are kind of, you know, as. As you’ve kind of written to me, really fit with your interests. And I have a podcast that is extremely diverse in its audience, but I’m not sure we’ve had a lot of guests who are sort of straight, white, privileged males, people who have slightly less complete left opinions on things. And when I say left, I mean the difference between right and left. Someone who’s a little bit more I wouldn’t define his political ideology, but some of the things that he says in this podcast represent, it’s kind of a bit more centrist, and I haven’t had a lot of people like that on this podcast. Now, one of the things that I love about this chat is that a) I really like the guest. His name is George Resch. You might know him from the internets Tank Sinatra. And I don’t just like him because he is the king of memes and he’s extremely funny and has lots of various different channels that serve very different parts of our brains, some very positive and uplifting and beautiful and some a little bit on the snarkier side and then some that are just pure, silly fun. So I wanted to have him on this podcast because I am genuinely a fan of his on the internet and also I am aware that he had a really fascinating struggle with addiction that I think is something that we don’t talk about on the podcast enough. And then also there’s a point in this episode where, you know, we disagree on certain things or we have different ways of looking at things and we speak about it with such mutual respect and kindness. And we offer differing opinions without too much emotion. Not that emotion is bad, and not that you should ever feel bad if you show a lot of emotion. But. We came at it from a place of looking for our similarities and our common ground rather than our differences. And the reason I think that’s valid is because it stands alongside lots of things I’ve been talking about. Last week’s episode, I began with a very big rant about the way that we all divide each other up and we push each other away and we split up into different groups and it gets nothing done. And the conversation I have with George is how I plan on speaking to more people with a hope to find our common ground. And I hope to find empathy for one another or for different causes together. I definitely like five years ago, I was much more like cut throat and cut off. If someone believed in different political ideologies. But a) that’s not getting us anywhere and b) it’s just not it’s not how the world works. We are all products of our environment. We all have different experiences that we base our opinions and our feelings off of. And those experiences can be very varied. And we don’t get to just obviously if someone is like a bigot who is looking to take someone’s rights away, that’s different. But if someone just looks at certain things a different way or in a more tolerant way than we would like or is more open minded than we think is right, then I think it’s worth just investigating that with a little bit of thoughtfulness and a bit of empathy. So, look, you might hate this episode. You might hate me, you might hate George. But I don’t think so. And he’s a really good person and I like where he comes from on a lot of subjects. And I really love the fact that a big, muscly, straight, white, privileged, strong male spends a lot of his time being very open about very sensitive issues, about being codependent, about owning the way that you are in a relationship and not burdening someone else with too much. I love the fact that he talks about his mental health. I love the fact that he talks about his addiction and. We need to hear more about what men think and feel in this world, especially when they’re hurting. Because if we leave all of these men uncared for and completely dismissed because of their privilege, then that only backfires on us. Because then you have a bunch of men who have no sense of community, no sense of belonging, going out there and and turning that pain into rage or recycling that pain and throwing it on to others. And I think everyone deserves at least a chance for our empathy and understanding our sympathy. And I think that if we do actually want a world that is a better place, we need to be inclusive of everyone’s needs and everyone’s vulnerability. So I really loved this chat and see how you feel. I do just want to quickly offer a quick warning, a sensitivity warning, because there is a mention of self-harm in this episode. So if that’s something you’re not ready to hear about right now, if you’re not in the mood, then I totally get it. And maybe this one isn’t for you today. And definitely follow Tank Sinatra online because he’s really fucking good at the internet, and extremely entertaining. And I hope you enjoy this chat. This is the lovely George Resch.

George [00:06:25] Is there video on here or no?

Jameela [00:06:27] We’re just going to use an extremely attractive nude. If you could send us that for you when we put the thing up.

George [00:06:34] I got nudes I don’t know about extremely attractive.

Jameela [00:06:37] I think it’s. I think it’s going to be great.

George [00:06:39] Yeah. I sat for a painting once. No I’m just kidding. A friend of mine did, though. He was an artist. I was like. And he was like 18. I was like, man, you got some balls. No pun intended. Like, yeah, I can’t believe he did that.

Jameela [00:06:55] But also the patience.

George [00:06:56] Just I mean, you got to sit nude for like 3 hours.

Jameela [00:06:58] Yeah.

George [00:07:00] I don’t want to be nude for 3 seconds.

Jameela [00:07:01] I honestly, if I could wear a tracksuit in the shower, I would.

George [00:07:04] Yeah I don’t want to be nude at home.

Jameela [00:07:08] I feel like this is a perfect way to start the podcast.

George [00:07:12] Yeah.

Jameela [00:07:13] George, welcome to I Weigh.

George [00:07:15] Yes.

Jameela [00:07:16] So a lot of people will know you as Tank Sinatra.

George [00:07:19] Yeah, most.

Jameela [00:07:20] I think this is the first time I’ve not referred to you as Tank.

George [00:07:23] Mm hmm.

Jameela [00:07:24] And I’m sorry.

George [00:07:26] It’s okay.

Jameela [00:07:26] I’m sorry, but it’s such a great name. It’s just so fucking sayable. And I’m so glad to have you here on the podcast.

George [00:07:33] Me too, I’m so glad we finally met.

Jameela [00:07:34] I know, I know. We’ve been kind of talking digitally over the years, kind of since I started the Good Place, and I’ve been a big fan of your meme accounts. And I think your I think everything that you’ve put out is at times, obviously is at times a little bit divisive. But generally I think you put a lot of really good, wonderful things out onto the Internet. And I feel like you and I both try to create silly, fun, safe spaces on an otherwise quite scary social media.

George [00:08:01] Yeah, I think if you’re not willing to be who you are, that’s where the divisiveness comes from. I do have an opinion on things for sure.

Jameela [00:08:07] Mm hmm.

George [00:08:08] I don’t mean to be, but sometimes I feel like Tank’s Good News I thought, was like, untrollable. There’s no way anybody would

Jameela [00:08:14] Tell people what it is.

George [00:08:16] So Tank’s Good News I started in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, and I had posted feelgood stuff on Tank Sinatra before. I remember actually the post that spawned the idea. It was a girl who walked down the aisle with a man who received her father’s heart, so her father had passed away.

Jameela [00:08:38] I remember this post.

George [00:08:38] And a man received his heart and and he walked her down the aisle instead of her father. And that went on Tank Sinatra. Crushed. It was not funny. There was nothing funny about it. But it’s very hard to not like stuff like that. I mean double tap. So Hurricane Harvey started and I saw the devastation and the, you know, just what was happening down there. But then I saw JJ Watts raised $20 million in a week, I saw the, the Cajun Navy, the residential just civilians pull their boats out of the water from like three or four states away and drive and rescue people. And I was like, I think this could be a page maybe, you know, and it became a page. And I was actually I swear to God, just to be quite honest with you, when Hurricane Harvey was over, I was like, well, I was like, is there going to be another hurricane soon? Like, I need content.

Jameela [00:09:27] Oh my god! Jesus Christ! You’re the fucking worst fucking influencer.

George [00:09:34] I know. I need content. God, come on, make it rain. But then I saw a story from the Bronx on the local news of a little four year old boy who fell off of a balcony and died. And I was like, you know what?

Jameela [00:09:49] I’m really glad you didn’t just go, yes.

George [00:09:53] No, no, no, no, no.

Jameela [00:09:55] So you’re not completely sociopathic. Go on. I’m joking.

George [00:09:58] No, I do worry about that.

Jameela [00:10:01] You’re fine.

George [00:10:02] So I saw this, you know, when Eric Clapton’s child fell out of the window. It was obviously a big story. But I remember seeing this person who was not famous. It was just a tragic story. And if the news can report on that, then I can report it doesn’t have to be J.J. Watt raising $20 million. Maybe can be a kid who has a friend who has cancer, who raises $200 to try and help his friend. It doesn’t have to be a huge story. And I started finding those stories and then I started posting them and they did just as well as the giant stories on the page. And I was like, There’s an appetite for this. And I always knew I wanted it, but I didn’t realize so many people wanted it also. I’m fascinated. I’ve always been fascinated by the macro and micro behavior and psychology of people on the Internet and just in general, like when I see something go viral. I’m like, why? Why? Why did the guy skating on the highway drinking cranberry juice to Fleetwood Mac go so crazy. He he’d been posting that shit for, you know, two years.

Jameela [00:11:04] You’re kind of like an analyst specialist at this point because you’ve seen so much, you’ve put out so many different types of content that have you noticed, like a any kind of tides or trends of on the Internet as to like what people do have an appetite for?

George [00:11:19] As far as true virality in the truest sense of the word. No. Zero. It is totally it’s always an anomaly.

Jameela [00:11:26] Oh, wow.

George [00:11:26] Yeah. I can predict on like if there are if there’s debates or if there is holiday, like, you know, Valentine’s Day or the Super Bowl. Super Bowl is like a meme holiday cause we know that whatever we post with a picture of someone from the halftime show is going to bang on our page.

Jameela [00:11:44] Right.

George [00:11:46] But as for like, that’s not a viral moment. A viral moment is something that truly, you know, erupts out of nowhere and goes ballistic and is proliferated many, many, many times over.

Jameela [00:11:58] But what about during the pandemic? You didn’t notice the change in what people had an appetite for? Like, did Tank’s Good News do better during the pandemic? Did it

George [00:12:05] Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, with the pandemic, that was a tough time because the pandemic led to the BLM protests. And I was trying to just just put something good out there. Right. And I did post a couple of things that I thought were good, and it was like. So no matter what I felt, I felt like no matter what I posted, I pissed off 1.4 million people. And it was like, you know what? I just can’t. I posted a.

Jameela [00:12:38] Because things were just so shit and terrible

George [00:12:41] They were so on edge.

Jameela [00:12:42] Right they thought that. So they thought that you were being like trivial or something by posting like good news or things that weren’t about that. Not using your platform to talk about that.

George [00:12:51] No. So I posted a video of a police officer working together with a group of protesters.

Jameela [00:12:57] Right, right, right.

George [00:12:58] And people were like, well, then why were they pepper spraying a group of protesters 5 minutes later? And it’s like, first of all, you know, you don’t know if it was that guy. There was so many different protests and so many different parts of the country. You don’t know if that guy was even in the area you’re talking about or if there was a shift change or if he was, you know, winning these people over and saying, hey, we want to work together with you. And then he was like, I got to go home. I’ve been here for 72 hours straight. And then somebody else came in and they had no idea what was going on and someone threw a can of soup at his head. And then he was like, Hey, pepper spray these people. We got to get them under control. You nobody knows. So I understood that there was there was just so much going on. And it was so heated all the time.

Jameela [00:13:40] And there were just so such an overwhelming amount of police officers behaving or enabling really bad behavior. But I also do think it’s really important to be allowed to say out out loud that not all police officers are inherently evil or looking to hurt people. A lot of people, you know, I’ve got friends whose brothers or sisters are police officers who really did get into it from a place of wanting to protect people. And it did become a very inflammatory time. I can see why that probably wasn’t the ultimate moment. But I also see that your motivation was to to breed less division because that’s so much of what’s out there.

George [00:14:19] Yeah. Just to showcase, hey, it’s not all us versus them or them versus us. Like I’m from Long Island, I’m Irish, you know? I know a lot of cops I’ve met. I can I can tell you I won’t tell you his name. I know one bad cop and he’s a piece of garbage human being. He got into policing for all of the wrong reasons, and he’s a corrections officer. And I just told him, I straight up told him, I said, I don’t think you should become a police officer. And he was like, Well, I didn’t want it was a guy I worked with. It wasn’t like a friend, friend. And he’s like, too late, bro. I mean, there those guys are in trouble. And I was like, Oh my God. I wanted to, like, call the jail and be like, You can’t hire this guy.

Jameela [00:15:03] Did you not, because you were worried that he’d come and retaliate against  you.

George [00:15:06] No, I just knew it was a fruitless endeavor. It was like the guy’s in already. I was hoping it was more talk than anything. Like he probably the way I look. I remember talking to a bunch of people. They feel very safe expressing these feelings to me. I remember talking to a bunch of people and they were, you know, they told I was they were talking about politics. I was like, no, I just don’t love Donald Trump at all. I think I haven’t liked him since I was a kid. And they were like, this one guy was like, you the way you look, you don’t like Trump. And I was like, That’s exactly why I don’t like him, because you can tell a lot about somebody the way they look, whether or not they like him. That’s not good.

Jameela [00:15:46] No.

George [00:15:46] You know, it says a lot about who he caters to.

Jameela [00:15:50] Right. Absolutely. And as I I mean, it speaks to a whole bigger other conversation. But I think it also kind of lends itself to why I thought it would be really cool to have you here, because I think a tall, very muscular, straight white man.

George [00:16:05] Who looks like a cop. Yeah.

Jameela [00:16:10] Who looks like a cop. With tattoos is not the person that one expects to come on and talk about childhood trauma or mental health issues or addiction or any of these things. And I think it’s really great that in spite of the fact that I think you’re very popular with bros worldwide, you are someone who who is willing and like you feel quite compelled to make sure that you talk about the real shit and you use your platform to make sure that other people who do look like you feel safe to talk about their issues because people who look like you rule the fucking world, and if you all walk around really angry and bottled up and traumatized and not dealing with it, not talking about it and not addressing it, then we’re all fucked.

George [00:16:51] Yeah.

Jameela [00:16:52] And so I think it’s really great and I appreciate your work.

George [00:16:54] I just feel like we’re all the same. We all have the same feelings, not the same experiences, but the same reactions to the to the experiences internally. We’re all dealing with the same chemicals in our body and a brain. So the more we talk about the real stuff that’s going on inside, the more we’ll go, Oh, I’m not I’m not that different from this guy. And if he’s not, if he is different, not that much different than me, how could I be that much different than this other person who I not only think is different than me, but I hate because I think they’re so much different than me. It’s like you can I just don’t understand the the desire. I mean, I guess it has a lot to do with how you raised as a whole. I mean, it’s a lot there’s a lot to unpack there. But I was taught by parents who just told me that you can never judge anybody by obviously the color of their skin. I don’t even think you can really judge people by their actions. I know that’s a dangerous thing to say. But if you held me to, you know, every action of my life and judged me by the worst thing I’ve ever done, who’s who’s who’s ever going to pass a test of life if you say, hey, yeah, I remember that guy. He got into a fight outside of a deli when he was 17. The guy’s a psycho. Well, I mean, yeah, that’s true. I did do that, but I’m 41. That was a mistake I made.

Jameela [00:18:17] I know what you mean. But there’s a spectrum of bad actions. Like, I think I could judge a rapist forever.

George [00:18:24] Yes. There are certain things that that are so bad that they become who you are.

Jameela [00:18:30] But I think I also think my my way of measuring it, because I understand and like, obviously I’ve done shit that I’m not proud of, but the way that I try to pick who I’m going to hold judgment against because I myself am an imperfect person who’ve done shit that I’m not proud of, and I hope that I can be, you know, redeemed. And I do believe in redemption. I do believe in reconciliatory, progressive work. But I think if you’ve caused irrevocable harm, then that’s when you receive my judgment. If you have done something that you can come back from, that you can fix, that you can better. But there are some things that some people do that are so abhorrent and long lasting that leave ripples for like years or decades and sometimes can never be made up for those people deserve all of my judgment. I do not see the point in wasting my time or energy on redemption for those people. But I do see what you’re saying. There’s a spectrum of bad behavior, and I do think that we are in a tricky time. And I’ve spoken about this on the podcast before of not really believing in redemption, of not believing in hope, and casting everyone aside for any single tiny mistake that they’ve made now or before. I do think, you know, not to get into the whole fucking cancel culture of it all. Jesus Christ, we can’t have that conversation anymore. But I do think that we need to learn how to separate ignorance from evil.

George [00:19:47] Oh, yeah.

Jameela [00:19:48] And a product of their environment who couldn’t choose in the moment to act differently. Or one who could. And and the this the scope of damage done.

George [00:19:57] And unfortunately, I think that I firmly believe this. I believe that everyone is doing the best with whatever tools they have. And sometimes you’ve got someone who’s trying to build a house with a bowling ball and hairpins and it’s like you’re never going to that life you’re trying to build is never going to look like what you want it to look like.

Jameela [00:20:17] Yeah. Way in which that really is like I think kind of magnified is when we see that there’s a lot of crime happening among the working class or people who are just being completely neglected by our society. And you’re like, Well, yeah, it’s fucking awful that they stole. It’s fucking awful that you got mugged. It is terrible.

George [00:20:32] Yeah.

Jameela [00:20:33] And awful for you. But also, where do we how do we look for the system? You know, I sometimes got into shit whenever there’s been, like an incel mass murder or murder. And I talk about. Even just talk about the fact that. Can we discuss the mental health crisis that’s happening among men? And if we were to also discuss perhaps more funding for mental health, we would be in less situations like this. And people get mad at me because then they feel like I’m stigmatizing other mentally ill people which I’m definitely not trying to do. And they also feel like I’m giving them a get out. And I just feel like if we always focus on the symptom and not the cause, we’re never going to get anywhere.

George [00:21:08] I know I don’t know what the resistance is with that.

Jameela [00:21:12] Just a punitive or a punitive generation.

George [00:21:14] Why people why people when you talk about like the Buffalo shooting where racism was a factor and people were like, let’s not blame it on mental illness, it’s like, do you not think that racism that to the point where you’d want to go kill people that can be classified as a mental illness? I do. I most certainly do. Yeah, 100%. I also think mental illness is so we we haven’t even figured out the body yet. The body is so much less complicated than the brain. And I believe that there is such things as like a mental illness equivalent of a cold where you’re just kind of having a rough day, maybe you don’t feel great. And then there’s mental illness, pancreatic cancer, where you’re completely beyond help and you go out and you murder 20 people. Like there’s got to be a spectrum of mental illness that they have to start trying to figure out. How sick are you?

Jameela [00:22:01] I think quite a lot of hatred is rooted in mental illness. And I even noticed like my own, like hatred is the one of minorities, but I used to have quite deep, like hatred of women for a while, you know, when I was younger, which is hilarious considering I’m now like very feminist. But I did, you know. And part of that came from the fact that I was very, very, very traumatized by a lot of the women in my life. And so that had made me just fear and hate a lot of women and judge a lot of women.

George [00:22:28] Yeah.

Jameela [00:22:29] And that’s because I was sick I PTSD again I’m not in any way please not fucking twist this the internet and to me being like well if a woman had treated this person right, you wouldn’t go out killing women. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying that I think it is really important that we categorize it as a sickness. I don’t know if evil is as prevalent as we think it is. I think there’s a lot of sickness because even as mentally ill as I was and full of hatred I was with all my mental illness, never got to a point where I would ever consider hurting a woman in any way, verbally or physically. So there is a spectrum of of of damage and sickness and ugliness. And I think we I think it’s I think it’s good. And I think I think it’s really good that we’re having this conversation. Right, because a lot of people hear some of the things that you say and think you’re being overly as in like these kind of things that you say. Some of these sentiments get expressed sometimes by more privileged people online and then they get dogpile. Yeah, because it’s too simplistic or it’s too apologists or it’s seen as and it brings up like it might even have already, like brought quite a visceral reaction maybe in the listener. And I, I actually do see where you’re coming from and it feels like it’s coming from like a hopeful place of wanting to actually find the cause so we can fucking fix it. Am I correct?

George [00:23:43] Oh, yeah. Well, I’ve also been in recovery for 20, almost 20 years, and I’ve watched people come back from the brink of physical, spiritual and emotional death. Like, near a moment, like near death. And it always comes down to, like, you having your experiences, but not having it get to the point where you want it to hurt or, you know, verbally or physically hurt women. Very lucky for you. You know what I mean? There was a piece missing for you. If something else had happened in your life where you were, you know, one moment had gone differently in your life, that tweaked a little bit of a neuron this way or that way, or your chemicals were a little bit different, maybe different for you.

Jameela [00:24:24] I tried to kill myself. I turned the gun inward. Yeah, but yeah, very common.

George [00:24:28] I mean, that’s. I’ve had so many friends commit suicide. It’s like, man, I’m sorry. Yeah. I mean, being an alcoholic, that’s one of the most I heard very early on. The two biggest killers of recovering alcoholics are cigarets and suicide. It was kind of tongue in cheek, but it was like, man, it wound up being very true. Yeah. When they when when a person kills themselves and they put suicide on the death certificate. It’s. It’s like, yeah, sure. Okay. That was the ultimate cause. But what was it, really? I’ve seen people forgive and not forget because forgetting is a you know, you don’t really have a choice over that. Your brain is allowed memories and accept but not approve of certain conditions in their life that led to them being very sick as they heal from those experiences and go on to live very happy, productive, fulfilling, peaceful lives. But it’s always them who has to do it. If you were beaten as a child, you can’t go to your the abuser and say, Hey, I need you to apologize. They can apologize all they want. If you’re not ready to forgive them, it’s going to fall on deaf ears anyway. Whereas if you make the decision, okay, this person like my grandfather. Was a very I read this book. It Didn’t Start with You, which I highly recommend for anybody dealing with, like, generational type of trauma. It is based on an experiment that they did with. It was discovered from Holocaust survivors, grandchildren. I forget what the thing was that spawned it, but Holocaust survivors, grandchildren who had never seen the inside of the walls of the gas chambers or something like recognized them in a picture or something like that. I mean.

Jameela [00:26:06] Genetics or something like that. Yeah.

George [00:26:08] So they did an experiment with mice where they had a mouse this is going to piss some people off, but whatever. And, you know, I got to tell it a mouse, they they let the mouse smell a strawberry aroma. Then they gave it a little shock. The cortisol went through the roof. That was the end of the experiment. That mouse gave birth to a different mouse. That mouse had no strawberry, no shock. That mouse gave birth to another mouse. And they let that mouse smell strawberry and the cortisol spiked through the roof. So it was like that trauma response was passed down through the DNA. That’s just. That’s just definite. So they don’t know about memories and all that kind of stuff. So when my grandfather, when I realized that he was orphaned at two years old and my son was four at the time when I read this book and I thought about my son staring up at the ceiling of an orphanage, wondering why nobody loved him and nobody wanted him. I said, Oh, that’s why my grandfather was so angry and made everyone around him pay for it for the rest of his life. He didn’t have the tools to be able to heal from that, recover from that. So he made my mom very scared and very, you know, whatever love he fearmongered in the house. And that was passed down to me. And I can’t blame him. I can’t blame my mom. My mom has done her best. I have great parents. They’re not perfect people. But they gave me just enough trauma to be funny. And they built my emotional muscles enough. Just enough to be resilient and strong. But I had to do the rest from there. You know, I just don’t believe that there’s anything that somebody can’t come back from if they’re willing to do the work. It took me a long time to be able to sit in a room by myself for even 5 minutes and not feel like I want to jump out of my skin.

Jameela [00:28:02] What have you been in recovery from for the last 20 years?

George [00:28:05] Alcoholism. Drug addiction. Codependence. Food. I mean, everything. I saw, whatever outside of me that I put inside me that I think is going to make me feel better. That’s you know, I have the disease of more, as they say. I love gum. I love gum. I can’t stop chewing it. Talking.

Jameela [00:28:27] Talking?

George [00:28:28] Yeah.

Jameela [00:28:28] Talking is an addiction.

George [00:28:29] Memes. Good news.

Jameela [00:28:31] Very some of some of these are very, very productive. But I. I have an addictive personality that I spotted very young, and I was raised around a lot of very addicted people. And so because of that, I made a choice. And part of this is because I was very sick growing up. So that was kind of saved my life, I think, because I knew I had such physical limitations that I wasn’t going to be able to get away with drugs. I was going to be able to get away with drink the way someone else would. If I fall over, it takes me six times longer than someone normal to recover, which is why I’m now in Marvel, because I thought that would be a safe job. But no I’m fine. But, um. But I. Yeah, I. I knew to not go near those things because I knew I would love those things and I totally have it with food and snacks and I there’s a donut place here and I had one good donut. It’s a sour dough donut. I had one good donut. And then I’ve eaten a donut from there. Twice a day, every day since I got here two weeks ago.

George [00:29:32] Of course.

Jameela [00:29:33] And I’m starting to feel sick just at the thought of the donut. But I have to do everything until I actually can’t stand it even now. So I. But but I’ve never gone into the depths of something that could actually really, really hurt me. It might have hurt my mind with the binge eating and the anorexia, but something that’s hurting your body that you then keep doing. I don’t know anything really about addiction at that level. So can you. 20 years. It’s a lot to sum up, but can you describe how that feels?

George [00:30:02] Well, you do know exactly the the the root of it, because you just described it. I’m sure the alcohol, the drugs are damaging. But that’s the symptom of the problem. The problem is that I acted against my will every single day, in every single way, because I thought on the other end of the action, there would be some kind of relief. And it was a lie every single time. But I convinced myself it’s a it’s a weird, strange mental twist where it’s like I guess it would be described as it’s it’s definitely excessive, but it’s compulsive also where there’s an obsession and then there’s an allergy of the body that plays into it as well. So when most people drink any liquid at all, they get less thirsty.As they drink the liquid. With alcohol, I somehow got more thirsty, if you can imagine that. So if even if you were in a desert for two days and you came out of the desert, someone handed you a glass of water. You would drink it very fast. They handed you another glass of water. You would drink it less fast, but you’d probably finish it. They handed you another one. You drink half and put it down. They handed you another one, you’d be like, I’m fine, I’m good, I’m hydrated. I’m all set.

Jameela [00:31:19] I’m not a camel. Yeah.

George [00:31:20] Yeah. That was a sneaky, sneaky joke. I wasn’t expecting that. With alcohol, there’s there’s no diminishing return at all. It’s just the more I drank, the more I wanted to drink. The inertia was so strong that the once a I mean. But the obsession, they both have to be present. So I have friends who are heavy drinkers, but they don’t think about it when they’re not drinking. I also know people who obsess about it, but then they have one glass of wine. So if both of those things are present, you have a problem. My wife has a drink. She feels a little buzzed. She has another drink. She feels too buzzed. She will refuse a third drink. She’ll say, oh no, it’s too much. I just don’t. Alcoholics, I believe only for myself. I can speak. But I didn’t. I just don’t have that. My mind was like, if one is good- first of all, never, ever, ever in my entire life did I have one drink. Quick, quick story. So when I came home, I got kicked out of college for drinking and, you know, drug use or whatever. Expelled. And I came home from college and I was like, I’m just going to stop drinking as much because I’m going to be around my parents, just like by virtue of proximity. I didn’t. All that happened was that I started to feel worse about it. So one Wednesday night, I’m sitting there drinking beers because I was getting ready to go out to this bar at 8:00. There was an all you could drink beer blast. They called it from 8 to 12, that you could drink as much as you could for $8, which I could barely get the $8 together, by the way. I used to go in there with ten and be like. Don’t forget me. Bartender. I thought I was like hooking him up. 25% tip like, this guy’s going to love me, you know? So I was drinking, and my mom comes into the kitchen and she goes. What are you doing? It’s like 730 on a Wednesday night. Why are you drinking beer? And I was like, I’m getting ready to go out to the bar. She goes, you can drink at the bar, right? I was like, Yeah, of course, idiot. She goes, Well, why are you drinking now? I was like, I’m because I’m getting ready to go to the bar and I’m like frustrated already because it’s mom and I’m just trying to, like, not talk to anybody. And I, she goes, Hold on. So just let me get this straight. You’re drinking before you go drinking. I was like, Yeah. Like pre gaming, right? That’s what it’s called. I have a tie in which finally, about two weeks ago, I it all came together, crystallized. So in my mind, my mom has had issues with food, which I’ve had also over the years. And that would be like me going to pick her up for dinner and she was sitting there eating two cheeseburgers. I’d be like, What are you doing? We’re going to eat. Why are you eating food right now? Just would not make any sense to me. I didn’t pregame because I was trying to save money or because I was trying to keep myself under control. I pre-gamed, quote unquote, because I couldn’t wait to drink. That’s why I drank before I went drinking. I just couldn’t wait. I couldn’t wait the extra half an hour. The obsession kicked in and it was like, if there’s alcohol around, I’m going to start drinking it.

Jameela [00:34:19] So did you just use AA? Did you have therapy? What have you done to kind of get out of this?

George [00:34:26] So I went to an anonymous fellowship that I do not speak about publicly because that would break tradition. But yeah.

Jameela [00:34:37] But no therapy. No one on one?

George [00:34:38] Oh, I went to therapy also.

Jameela [00:34:39] OK ok.

George [00:34:40] I did everything.

Jameela [00:34:40] Right. Did you try meds?

George [00:34:42] I’ve tried medication over the years. Yep. So I know that. So the whole anonymity thing and. And the traditions. I’m. I’m. I’m respectful of the requests of the creators or the founders of the fellowship, which is the one that you said. I just don’t want to say it. Because, like, I’m like, okay, so why not? Why can’t I? Because that’s the that’s the deal. It’s not a rule. It’s just like, hey, just don’t be a dick about it. Don’t like because you have people who like not to throw any one person under the bus. I do have a backup statement on it. Like Lindsay Lohan went out very publicly and she’s like, I’m going to AA. Yeah, cool, look at me. And then two weeks later, she’s getting pulled over for, you know, being high on cocaine and drunk and drunk driving. It just makes AA look bad. I never want to do that because that fellowship saved my life and I want it to be there for anyone who wants it. But I also feel like if the only reason you’re not going to get help is because Lindsay Lohan talked about it once then.

Jameela [00:35:50] Yeah, I.

George [00:35:51] Maybe you’re not ready.

Jameela [00:35:51] I think the bigger conversation is also that it’s really sad that there still is such a stigma around addiction, considering how many people in the world are. It’s sad that this place that you go to to get help for your addiction is something that, like everyone there, you have to use fake names for.

George [00:36:07] No, there’s no fake names.

Jameela [00:36:08] No, no. I’m talking about like when you’re I’ve got friends in that institution who come back and they have chosen to use fake names for the people that they might be like,.

George [00:36:17] Oh, really?

Jameela [00:36:17] Talking about a story.

George [00:36:18] Oh, okay.

Jameela [00:36:19] But everyone’s sort of Steve or Bill.

George [00:36:21] Yeah. Yeah.

Jameela [00:36:22] They’re probably someone else, especially in Los Angeles. You know, and. And they’re very protective of the name. And I and I appreciate that. And I think privacy is really important. But I do also feel like the root cause of all of that is that I can see why some, you know, young people are trying to be open about like I’m going to AA cause they don’t think in two weeks they’re going to relapse. I can see why they’re trying to, like, encourage other people. Like, in the moment, they’re like, oh, you know, I want to de-stigmatize this. I think I think Demi Lovato has been really interesting on that.

George [00:36:52] Yeah, I also just don’t want to represent it.

Jameela [00:36:54] Yeah of course.

George [00:36:55] As an individual, I have no problem. I love talking about recovery literally with anyone who will let me talk about it. It’s my favorite topic to talk about, but I don’t want to be. It’s just a lot of pressure to represent no one person in the history of that organization has ever represented it. Even the founders, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob. They’re kind of like, we’re just servants. We just like, kind of put it all together. It is so. Such a special place that I just want to make sure that, God forbid, my kids have this issue, that it’s not sensationalized or anything like that by the time they might need it.

Jameela [00:37:33] Totally. But at the same time, there’s a flipside to everything. Had I not, I think I only learned about AA and so did a lot of my friends from the fact that we heard that celebrities were going there. So it’s a kind of interesting thing of like there’s a it’s a double edged sword. I totally get the you’re saying and the sacredness of it.

George [00:37:47] You heard from them individually.

Jameela [00:37:49] No.

George [00:37:50] Talking about it publicly.

Jameela [00:37:51] Yeah. I wasn’t even in this industry until I was like 30, you know, like I. But but that’s how a lot of us learned about AA. It’s like Robert Downey Jr, whoever. Like, I don’t know if it was definitely like him, but, you know, people speaking about it in that kind of redemptive GQ article. Mostly it was men because women are too ashamed to admit their addiction issues until that kind of new generation of pop stars. But I do think it’s a kind of I just mean that I can I can see the benefit to it. But I also see why you would like to protect to make sure that it’s sacred and people feel like it works.

George [00:38:20] Well, that was Bill Wilson, I believe, famously said we want to be anonymous to protect the privacy of the members, but not so anonymous that.

Jameela [00:38:27] Exactly.

George [00:38:27] They can’t find us.

Jameela [00:38:27] Exactly. I think that’s I think that’s the I think that’s the balance. So 20 years in recovery.

George [00:38:33] Yeah, October 3rd.

Jameela [00:38:33] How how soon oh congratulations. How soon after kind of getting into recovery did you feel like I know that there’s like a 12 step program for some people in different versions of recovery, but how soon after that did you feel like you could rejoin society? And the reason I ask that is that there’s a lot of people who either faced that they had an addiction or developed an addiction during lockdown because there was fuck all else to do. And and people were just stuck at home alone with their demons. And those people might now be, as the world is going back to functioning, are now reckoning with the habit they’ve either discovered or picked up.

George [00:39:15] Yeah.

Jameela [00:39:16] And they might be wondering, listening to this, resonating with this, like, will I ever get to live normally again? And you know, obviously it’s different for each individual, but for you personally, what did you feel?

George [00:39:29] It’s been a progressive feeling of like, okay, I’m a human, okay? I’m more human. Okay, I’m, I’m I’m becoming more and more it’s a self esteem build over the course of I mean. When do you ever feel like you are who you are? I don’t know. I do know this. I’ve thought about this a couple of times because everyone that I came in with when I was younger, I felt like was going to be there the whole time. And some people were there. They came in after me. But there’s not a lot like there’s most people that I came in with the first year that I came in, I don’t they’re not there anymore, which is unfortunate. A lot of the people that came in after that really got serious about it, stuck around. They they stayed their lives got immeasurably better. But it’s like the someone’s building a skyscraper in Manhattan. And they start 20 years ago. And it’s the difference between knocking it down every year or continuing to build nonstop. And I’ve been able to build nonstop for 20 years. So my life on every level is a dream. I my career is the career of my dreams. My wife is the wife of my dreams. My family is the family of my dreams. The house is the house of my dreams. My physique is the physique of my dreams.

Jameela [00:41:01] Good for you, don’t need to apologize for that.

George [00:41:03] It’s not. But I don’t care is what I’m trying to say. Like I’ve come to accept that my body is my body. I’m not going to be a fitness model. It’s all good. I don’t have to be. I was a chubby, chubby kid growing up. I got made fun of. I wanted to be.

Jameela [00:41:19] You were six, right? When someone a girl at school at like the playground fat shamed you?

George [00:41:23] No a boy.

Jameela [00:41:24] Oh it was a boy. Fat shamed you.

George [00:41:27] Yep. And then it happened again when I was, you know, ten and then. And then a lot during middle school and then some during high school. Looking back on it, it wasn’t as much as I thought, but it was enough. I mean, it was pretty traumatizing for sure. So it’s funny that I was in, you know, in for the Cannes for the wine festival. And people are asking me, what’s the deal with the beluga? Why are you why is your profile picture a beluga? So I explained to them a story about how I did a commercial and a girl took a screenshot of the commercial and said, Please don’t get mad at me. But in this particular screenshot, at this particular angle, you look like this particular beluga at this particular angle. No, no problem Jameela, at all. I said, Oh, my God, that is hilarious. You’re right. I do. That’s so funny. And I just ran with it. That was like a year and a half ago. Maybe two years ago, I started posting beluga memes, making fun of it, having fun with it, which is great because as a child where, you know, sixth, seventh grader, I was called Shamu for two, three years straight by these two idiots on the bus who Shamu was a killer whale back then. It was a whale, right? So they call me Shamu, and it used to crush me, make me feel horrible. So the fact that somebody called me a whale later on and I thought it was fun in good fun, funny and had fun with it is also something of my dreams. I never thought I’d be able to have fun with something like that. I just don’t care as much anymore about what other people think of me because I’m so confident in who I am and how I act and what I do and how I feel and how I treat people and how I treat myself. It’s like, if you think I’m fat, what’s more, why do you care so much about how much body fat is on my body? That’s weird, man. I don’t know what to tell you.

Jameela [00:43:21] And do you, like. Do you genuinely not. Not struggle anymore. Like when? Like you, you know, you spend so much of your time on the Internet, so much time on social media, you never get triggered anymore.

George [00:43:29] No, I don’t care. I find some kid. Some guy told me I looked like a vape cloud with eyes. Funny, super funny. If somebody says if somebody goes out of their way to tell me that I look fat in a picture or a video. At this point. I mean, I legitimately feel bad for them and I hope that they have a good day. I legitimately think, oh, my God, I’m so sorry you feel that way about life. And like you took the time to write a message to me or to comment that on a video. I’m sorry you’re going through this rough patch in your life. I hope you have a better day.

Jameela [00:44:13] You struggled with codependency before.

George [00:44:15] Oh, yeah.

Jameela [00:44:16] Can you talk a little bit about that?

George [00:44:17] I could talk about that for 8 hours if you want.

Jameela [00:44:20] Not for 8 hours please.

George [00:44:22] So one funny story is from when I was 23, I was dating this girl and she also had the same problem. She actually kind of like highlighted in me. I didn’t realize how bad I had it until I dated her and she was like, You know what? I’m going to go. There’s this like codependence, go to go to codependent anonymous thing that my mom told me about. I’m going to go to one of these meetings. And I was like, Well, I want to go with you. I thought she was going to like meet somebody at the meeting. I was terrified and she was like, No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Like, that’s how codependent I was. That’s like somebody saying, Hey, I’m going to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and me being like, Yeah, I’ll meet you there. We’ll get a keg. It’ll be fucking sick, you know? It’s just totally missing the point. So that was 23. I didn’t really develop codependency until I got sober and I started having feelings. Before that, it didn’t feel anything, so I didn’t care. But there were certain things that happened in my childhood. Abandonment, whatever. Like, I didn’t realize until this workshop that I knew from child psychology in college that children are born with two fears. Fear of loud noises. And fear of falling. That I knew. But then I went to this abandonment workshop, she said. They’re born with fear of loud noises, fear of falling and fear of abandonment. Fear of abandonment makes so much more sense than even the other two. Because a child is helpless when they’re born up until about four or so. I mean, three, whatever. They can’t walk for the first year, year and a half. So we went there. We watched, you know, listened, learned whatever. And just the act of signing up for this thing was like. I’m like, I’m on the path. I’m good. Just like I need help saying that is an act.

Jameela [00:46:06] No. And I like the fact that you could go together. I read a I think it’s maybe like a tiktok or something of a guy who said that men invented golf because they didn’t know how to ask each other to like go for a walk. It is genuinely one of my favorite things that I’ve ever heard.

George [00:46:23] That’s so funny.

Jameela [00:46:25] And so it makes me really happy to know that you have made sure that you do not have toxic friends around you and that you are around people who do not shame you for being so open and emotionally available and wanting to work on yourself. I think that’s really great.

George [00:46:39] Yeah. I would never be friends with someone like that.

Jameela [00:46:42] No. And I. I think I wish I so, so, so wish more men did work on this. And, you know, and we, you know, we were talking earlier on the fact that people are a product of their environment and that, you know, I think what we were kind of touching on is like, do we have free will, right? If you are a product of certain neurology, of epigenetics, of circumstance, etc.. But there is definitely a disproportionate amount of men who act on that pain outwardly and women who act on it inwardly where we like hurt ourselves, kill ourselves, stop ourselves, punish ourselves in some way. And what I would hope for in the world is that neither of them hurt anyone. It’s not. It’s not. It is technically more noble to hurt yourself rather than another person as a low fucking bar.

George [00:47:31] Yeah.

Jameela [00:47:32] And my hope would be that we could all learn helpful, healthy ways. And I feel that way, especially about men, because of how dangerous they can be for. Everyone else, including each other, almost especially statistically, especially including each other.

George [00:47:48] Yeah it’s wild. It really is.

Jameela [00:47:49] It’s fucking terrifying.

George [00:47:49] Yeah.

Jameela [00:47:50] And so with this big platform and you write books, etc., and you have a son.

George [00:47:56] Two sons.

Jameela [00:47:56] Two sons.

George [00:47:58] Daughter. Stepdaughter.

Jameela [00:47:59] Yeah. So what are you teaching your kids based on what you’ve learned? Like, what kind of can I just ask what kind of environment you’re fostering? Because I think that’ll be really helpful for people to know have come through everything you’ve come through. How do you separate your own trauma from what you’re teaching them, etc.?

George [00:48:19] Yeah, I try. There’s there’s only two things that I can think of that are practical that I would say otherwise. It’s just like trying to give them as much love and attention as possible because kids know when you’re paying attention to them and when you’re not. And that’s.

Jameela [00:48:32] And dogs.

George [00:48:32] Yeah, they need that.

Jameela [00:48:33] I once had a cat that wants pissed on five different phones of mine.

George [00:48:37] Really?

Jameela [00:48:37] Yeah.

George [00:48:38] That’s a lot of phones.

Jameela [00:48:39] She fucking new. She fucking knew. Yeah, it was really crazy. Sorry go on.

George [00:48:44] That’s a lot of phones. So one time, me and my wife get along, but sometimes we’ll, you know, we’ll get heated or whatever.

Jameela [00:48:52] It’s been 11 and a half years.

George [00:48:53] Yeah. Yeah. And I start my son started my nine year old started talking to her at a tone that was like a little bit aggressive. Right. So I sat him down with everyone. My wife, my stepdaughter, my four year old son and him. And I said, Hey, dude, this way that you’re talking to Mommy. It’s not been going on forever. So I’m trying to catch it, you know, nip it in the bud. But it’s not okay. It’s not going to fly. You can’t do it. I know you hear me talk to her like that sometimes, but I have to let you know that never in my life have I spoken to her like that and felt good about it. What you don’t see is that every time I speak to her like that, I feel terrible inside because I’ve lost control, I’ve lost my temper, and I apologize to her, which I do. And this ties into the other thing. Every time we’ve got into an argument where we’ve got like too heated, which has been. Since my kids have been alive. Maybe five times.

Jameela [00:49:52] Does that mean just screaming at each other?

George [00:49:53] Yeah. Like screaming. Yeah. Like maybe for like, which is too, like any is too much, but, like, it’s impossible to not do it. I apologize to her in front of the kids. Apologize to them for yelling at their mom and apologize to everyone for making it uncomfortable in the house. Like, I just think that that’s you got to be open about it because when my parents would fight, we would just be in the other room like god I hope they stop soon I hope they stop soon. I hope they stop soon. And then nobody would say anything about it. So we would just come out like this, like, you know, like a like a soldier coming out of, you know, the.

Jameela [00:50:26] That’s why a lot of people don’t learn how to apologize because they don’t see they don’t see it or like deconstruct something after it’s happened. They just are taught to move on. I think that’s so toxic.

George [00:50:35] Yeah. Like there’s like this joke that, you know, in my house, there would be a huge blowout argument and then nobody would talk for however long, and then somebody would sneeze and and then someone would go, God bless you. And then that’s how everyone would, you know, start talking again. What? That’s the icebreaker. Someone’s got to sneeze in order for us to start talking?

Jameela [00:50:54] Rubbing pepper on everyone’s noses.

George [00:50:57] Come on. Like, be a little bit more emotionally mature than that. So it’s all open, all honest, all not all like. Listen, it’s not like I don’t worry my kids needlessly about things that they don’t have to be worried about. But if I make a mistake, I own it in front of them and make sure that they know that it’s okay to make mistakes. But it’s more important to fix it after the fact and try and not make the mistake again. Like, I’m sorry. Doesn’t mean I’m sorry you got hurt. It means I made a mistake, and I’m going to do my best not to do that again. That’s what I’m sorry means.

Jameela [00:51:33] I think it’s really important. I think accountability is incredibly important. I think teaching kids about all these different things is vital. But I also think it’s so important to teach them how to own the feelings they have. Not just about when someone else has hurt you, but when you’ve hurt someone else. Just to not run away from any kind of hurt, you have to own it and process it, because otherwise that will lead you to damaging behavior or addiction, which is another form of damaging behavior like bottling things up. Eating disorders, any kind of like depression, can often be caused by repressing your rage or your self rage or your embarrassment, your shame. And it’s very refreshing to hear you talk about that and talk about how intentional you are about accountability. And and owning the bad, like, how bad that feels when you hurt someone else. Cause I feel like kids don’t learn that. And what scares me about online now is that you don’t really have to see the look on someone’s face when you hurt them. Some of the shit that people say to me every day, like online or I’m just like, God, you just don’t think I’m a human being and that I bleed when you cut me. But also what they’re saying to each other. And then what age is so young now where they’re saying these unbelievably dehumanizing, dehumanized, sick things and we’re just doing it digitally and unable to, that there’s no accountability.

George [00:52:57] Yeah, it’s.

Jameela [00:52:58] Fucking politicians talking to each other like this.

George [00:53:00] It’s that that’s terrible and disgusting. I can’t believe that that goes on. But you asked, I have to say this. You asked about therapy before. The single most important thing I learned in years and years and years of therapy, almost to the point where I was like, We’re good here. I think I did go for a couple of sessions after that, but this was like at the tail end. He said that when self-centeredness and trauma intersect, self-loathing imprints on the individual in that moment and informs all of the person’s decisions from that point forward. So children are self-centered. It’s not a fault, it’s just a characteristic. That’s what they are like to the point where a baby literally thinks you disappear if they’re playing peekaboo. Right. But some adults are self-centered anyway. So as a child, if you’re self-centered and and something traumatic happens, that could be something as horrific as being molested or sexually assaulted or beaten. But it could be something like getting yelled at or something mild.

Jameela [00:53:59] Or watching someone you love getting yelled at.

George [00:54:01] Watching someone you love getting yelled at. Whatever makes your adrenaline spike and causes that memory to be stored in your brain, you don’t think, Wow, I saw something bad happen. You think that bad thing happened because I’m bad. So then later on in life, because I was doing really well in my life and I was like still doing certain things that made me feel bad. He goes, You’re doing so well. But your subconscious, your self-loathing is ensuring that you feel bad because you have this self-loathing. I’ll say, What are you talking about? And then he explained, self self-centered as trauma intersect self-loathing imprints. He goes When you’re on a run, a good one, like a role. I mean, in life your brain will go. You should, you know, spend too much money or whatever. You should look at some porn. You should get into a fight with your wife you should start some trouble. So you feel bad so that the feeling that you have reflects how you really feel about you.

Jameela [00:54:56] That’s what my binge eating after a good day was.

George [00:54:58] Yeah, exactly. Because it only really happened when things were going well for me.

Jameela [00:55:02] I used to do it. Just feel guilty.

George [00:55:04] Yes. So he said, what you do with that, the opposite of that or the antidote is to feel that feeling creep up, greeted with like curiosity and love and say, why? You know, why would I want to do something like that? And then self-care like something else. It’s not as immediately gratifying as the activity that prior made you feel good. Like eating.

Jameela [00:55:27] Good wank.

George [00:55:27] Good wank, good spend, eating, whatever. But the rewards of it, I mean, oh my God.

Jameela [00:55:35] They last a lot longer as well.

George [00:55:36] You get to feel good about not doing that thing all day long or however long you want. Whereas the only thing you do only feels good in the moment and then it feels like shit for the rest of however long you feel guilty for.

Jameela [00:55:49] 100%. It just sounds like you’ve done so much work on yourself over the last 20 years. And I hope that you continue to use your platform to put out these important conversations. And I.

George [00:56:08] You too.

Jameela [00:56:09] Yeah, I. I can’t shut the fuck up. I literally can’t stop talking about mental health and encouraging everyone to get help. And, um, and I really, I, like I said, I really appreciate the chat. I think when we were first talking about you coming on the podcast, there was a part of me that thought, Well, he’s not very relatable to a lot of my audience. And then I quickly changed my mind where I was like, It’s really important to not exist in an echo chamber. And also it’s really important to not be a part of separation and ostracization and judging people and looking at someone like you and people thinking you look like a cop and therefore assuming your politics and your identity and your like, you know, beliefs.

George [00:56:55] Yeah.

Jameela [00:56:56] I do. And since I I’ve had a lot of a lot of men on this podcast since making that decision to make sure that we we do have these conversations. We do understand and if you and I don’t totally agree on a subject, we can talk about that in a very civilized way where we’re like, I’m not sure I disagree. I really love having these kinds of conversations and I wish there would be more conversations with a bit more like attempt to try and meet each other in the middle.

George [00:57:24] Yeah. And we might even come to an agreement or I might listen to this. And then something happens in my life where I go. She was right or vice versa. You know, I mean, life is is very unpredictable and long. And I feel very differently about things, certain things that I than I did when I was 15, 25, 30. You know what I mean?

Jameela [00:57:45] Were you ever on your high horse?

George [00:57:48] Outwardly, potentially. Yeah. When I lost 60 pounds in my senior year of high school, I didn’t wear a shirt for like two years. I used to go food shopping with no shirt. I went to, like, the supermarket and.

Jameela [00:58:05] Oh my God, what in the Channing Tatum is that?

George [00:58:06] Yeah.

Jameela [00:58:08] Oh, my God. Well, I think people do that now with the way that they behave.

George [00:58:14] Yeah.

Jameela [00:58:14] I think that sometimes people are like and a lot of the people who do it the most are actually very young. And we can’t see their age on Twitter. But lots of people who are the most unforgiving and unbelieving and unrelenting and who don’t think of progress, we have no idea that we’re talking to fucking 14 year olds and 16 year olds. They haven’t had a chance to really fuck up yet.

George [00:58:31] Sure. Yeah.

Jameela [00:58:32] And I think it’s so important. I worry so much about the fact that while I think that there can be some good that comes of, you know, puritanical obsession with goodness, I because it pushes us to be better. But what scares me about it is that most people have made some really regrettable mistakes. And I don’t want them to believe that there’s no hope in redemption, but there’s no in their own self redemption. So fuck what you think about other people. You’re internalizing a lot of this without realizing and thinking then you don’t deserve a second chance.

George [00:59:07] Yeah, I. One of my favorite stories is Les Mis, which I didn’t I thought I was going to hate. I went to go see it on Broadway. I was a blubbering mess by the end of it. Oh, my God. I couldn’t believe how good it was. And then I watched the movie for the next three months, and then I learned all the words to a Valjean soliloquy. Just an addict through and through. You know.

Jameela [00:59:30] But that story resonated with you.

George [00:59:32] Oh, yeah.

Jameela [00:59:33] Well, then I have one final question for you.

George [00:59:35] Wait. Can I tell people about the board game quick?

Jameela [00:59:38] Yes, of course you can.

George [00:59:39] I have to. Yeah, because it’s coming out soon to be in stores by the time this is out.

Jameela [00:59:44] Great.

George [00:59:44] The biggest thing I’ve ever done.

Jameela [00:59:45] Okay.

George [00:59:47] Influencers in the Wild: The Game.

Jameela [00:59:50] This is an account, by the way, where George has created an account where people can upload videos. And you must have. There’s just no way. If you are on Instagram, you haven’t seen them. Of people recording the content that becomes influencer content. So it’s a kind of a bird’s eye view rather than we all see it from the camera’s point of view, we get to see that shit being made and it is is.

George [01:00:13] Painful.

Jameela [01:00:14] It is painful at times. It’s painful time. I try to I wrestle with myself. I keep following your account in part because it’s extremely entertaining, but also to challenge myself to be like, stop being such a judgmental fucking prick. But also there there is a real toxicity to some of the.

George [01:00:30] Oh, it’s so silly. It’s so silly.

Jameela [01:00:31] Vanity and the the madness that happens online, people doing literally anything, risking their lives for content.

George [01:00:37] Yet that stuff is scary. I try I try not to post that anymore because I don’t want to get you know.

Jameela [01:00:41] Encourage anyone.

George [01:00:41] In trouble.

Jameela [01:00:41] Yeah.

George [01:00:43] I try and there’s so much content they get submitted. It’s like I really have the pick of the litter I don’t have to post like scrap scrapping for content.

Jameela [01:00:50] So you have this, you have this. I just wanted to explain what influence in the world was. So you have game about it now.

George [01:00:55] So we have a board game. The tagline is Go places, gain, followers, get famous, no talent required. That’s what it says right on the front of the box. Just so people know what they’re getting into right away. Like this is not a serious game. This is a silly, silly time. So you pick a a playing piece. It could either be the festival music festival girl who has like the one of those, you know,.

Jameela [01:01:15] Flower crowns.

George [01:01:16] That hat, no it’s a big like big like hat.

Jameela [01:01:18] Oh Fedora. Yeah.

George [01:01:19] Yeah. Giant fedora. The Coachella hat.

Jameela [01:01:23] I used to wear one of those to festivals. I totally.

George [01:01:25] Yeah. I would.

Jameela [01:01:27] Hold my hand up.

George [01:01:28] The girl on the yoga pose. She’s in tree pose the dog who has sunglasses on it probably makes more money than both of us. Guy doing it TikTok like dancing the fitness influencer and then the tourist with the selfie stick. So it’s 2 to 6 players. So you start and then you roll the dice and then you travel around this board, which is beautiful. I mean, it’s like it’s the board itself is majestic. That’s a game in itself, finding all the jokes on the board. Adam, the creator, designer, the guy who I did the podcast with. So you travel around, you stop in Bali, you go to Coachella, you go to Burning Man, you go to Tulum, you go to Griffith Park, you go to you know, you end up at the pink wall in L.A., which is like the end. That’s the Mecca. But along the way, if you land on no Wi-Fi, you lose a turn. If you can’t land on one of those spots that I told you about, you gain 100,000 followers. So basically just travel the world and rack up followers instead of money. If you land on a blue space, which is where all the fun is, you pick a random playing card and it’s either challenges, questions, penalties or rewards. So the challenge is my favorite, personal favorite challenge is, you know, do your, you know, take your video yourself doing your best hustle and grind motivational speech for 30 seconds and post it to Instagram with the hashtag influencer game. Like, you know, you got to, you know, do like a Gary Vee impersonation because those people are insane to me. Never stop posting, never stop working, never. So, like.

Jameela [01:02:55] I know, terrifying.

George [01:02:55] Take a nap. Okay, relax. You’re not doing. You’re not changing the world. Dude, it’s okay, you’re doing Amazon dropshipment. Relax.

Jameela [01:03:04] I’m not coming for Gary Vee on this podcast.

George [01:03:07] I love Gary Vee! No, not him. Those the people who like.

Jameela [01:03:09] Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

George [01:03:10] Worship him.

Jameela [01:03:11] Yeah.

George [01:03:11] He’s like the real deal. Ed Mylett Is the real deal. Not talking about the real deal people. I’m talking about like the the I’m going to be them.

Jameela [01:03:18] Yeah, fine.

George [01:03:19] The questions are like, you know, they are designed to get people talking like who at the table got a dog just to post pictures of them on Instagram? And then people start pointing fingers. Who does the person to your right ever had oatmilk? And then if you guess that properly, you get 25,000 followers or whatever it is. The rewards are all things that have happened to me in real life. So you’ll be part of the expansion pack. You get invited on the I Weigh podcast gained 50,000 followers, but right now it’s like the Rock reposted your meme, your video goes viral on TikTok, stuff like that. But the penalties are the funniest. Penalties are oh no there’s the John Mayer commented on your posts, you get verified, and you get 100,000 followers and Kristen Bell reposted you and told everyone they have to follow you.

Jameela [01:04:08] That’s what happened to you with Tanks Good News.

George [01:04:10] That’s what happened to me was Tank’s Good News. So you get verified and you get a hundred thousand followers. So the penalties are.

Jameela [01:04:15] But if I defend you online, you lose 100,000 followers. I imagine.

George [01:04:19] If you align yourself with Jameela Jamil in any way, shape or form.

Jameela [01:04:23] Hundred percent.

George [01:04:23] You get kicked out of the game.

Jameela [01:04:24] That was a joke on Gossip Girl.

George [01:04:25] Was it really?

Jameela [01:04:26] Genuinely, it was like, Oh, no, Jameela Jamil’s defended you. And like, that was a bad thing. And I was I fucking made it. I fucking made it.

George [01:04:33] Wow.

Jameela [01:04:33] I’m on. I’m a I’m a I don’t know if I’m a meme, but I’m a I’m a punchline.

George [01:04:38] That’s crazy.

Jameela [01:04:39] But it’s hysterical because also a little bit true. So now when people are in trouble, they come to me that I can you support me on this. I’m like, Trust me.

George [01:04:45] You don’t want it.

Jameela [01:04:46] Trust me. You don’t want any of this smoke. Okay, run, run for yourselves. I got a friend London Hughes. She’s just told me that she’s written about me in her book, and I was like, stupid.

George [01:04:55] Yeah.

Jameela [01:04:56] Very kind of you, but stupid.

George [01:04:58] That’s so funny.

Jameela [01:04:58] Stupid. I won’t even let people take my, like, any friends of mine who are famous will let them take selfies with me because I’m just like, Don’t do it. It’s career suicide.

George [01:05:04] Oh, we should get a picture. I’ll get so many pictures with you.

Jameela [01:05:08] Why? You’re doing so well. You’re doing so well. Why would you ruin it for yourself? You should put me in the game. I’m joking. Don’t do that.

George [01:05:15] Self-centered isn’t trauma. So it’s all real stuff. And I hope people realize how much effort we put into it because we put a lot of effort into it. And it’s in Target, which is a dream again. Everything’s a dream. Here with you is a dream. I don’t like that you said you’re not someone to align yourself with. Because I disagree. I think you’re a strong character in the world. I think we need more people like you who are willing to have an opinion on things and not back down. I don’t think you’re a negative in the world at all. You’re the exact opposite, actually.

Jameela [01:05:55] Thank you. I personally agree that I’m not a bad person.

George [01:06:00] As you sould.

Jameela [01:06:01] But we cannot separate ignorance from evil or like we cannot forgive and we cannot. And.

George [01:06:06] Ignorance is not knowing.

Jameela [01:06:07] I honestly like that’s what about this whole podcast is supposed to be a safe space where we can just learn about each other.

George [01:06:12] Yeah.

Jameela [01:06:13] And so I definitely feel like we’ve achieved that today. And my last question is the question I ask at the end of every episode, which is. George, what do you weigh?

George [01:06:23] 247.

Jameela [01:06:26] No. Are you joking?

George [01:06:26] No.

Jameela [01:06:27] No, no, no. Sorry. I thought they told you this at the beginning. We never ask someone what they actually weigh in pounds and kilos. What it means is the I Weigh format for the I Weigh movement, which is like I weigh myself, like in in ways that don’t relate to how society weighs us. Right? This is like I weigh my 20 years of recovery. I weigh can I keep this in?

George [01:06:47] Yeah, of course.

Jameela [01:06:48] It’s fucking hysterical.

George [01:06:53] I think the president made the exact same amount as me.

Jameela [01:06:56] No, no.

George [01:06:56] No, no, no, no. Oh, what do you weigh?

Jameela [01:06:58] What do you weigh? Like the. Yeah, the I Weigh format.

George [01:07:02] I was like, damn, you just like you just did the whole podcast.

Jameela [01:07:04] Yes insane. That would be unbelievable. I’m sorry that I hadn’t explained that to you.

George [01:07:07] Now that you feel safe, what’s that scale say?

Jameela [01:07:11] Yeah. Yeah. I also can cut out that part. It just it was just hysterical. But the way that you would sum yourself up.

George [01:07:19] I weigh. My treatment of myself first and my treatment of others second. And my relationship with God above all. And I don’t say God in a religious sense at all.

Jameela [01:07:33] You mean Beyonce.

George [01:07:35] Well, she doesn’t return my calls. But yeah, I mean, no, my so my so my relationship with my higher power, which I call God sometimes because it’s three letters, one syllable, it’s just easy to say. I was raised Catholic, not even close to Catholic. Don’t align myself with any religion whatsoever. My, my. My desire. And my ability to do what I think. I’m here for on this earth to listen to that little voice inside me that’s pointing me in the right good direction. So when I hear that voice, it says, you should make the bed. I try and do that. Or you should. Whatever. Just whatever the good impulses. I try and honor the good impulses in me and ignore the bad impulses in me. That’s a simple way to put it. My sobriety. Super important. That’s the greatest gift of my relationship with God. And then my family is my greatest gift of my sobriety. They’re all intertwined.

Jameela [01:08:38] It’s lovely. It’s lovely. I thank you.

George [01:08:41] And pizza.

Jameela [01:08:42] Yeah, sure. Yeah. 100%. So with you on that.

George [01:08:45] Very important.

Jameela [01:08:46] I appreciate your dedication to redemption, your own, and that of others. And it was really nice to chat.

George [01:08:52] Yes, I loved it. Let’s take a selfie.

Jameela [01:08:55] Oh, no. You’re so bad you were about to do so well. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan and Kimmie Gregory. It is edited by Andrew Carson. And the beautiful music you’re hearing now is made by my boyfriend James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate review and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support. We also have a bonus series exclusively on Stitcher Premium called Ask Jameela Anything. Check it out. You can get a free month of Stitcher Premium by going to Stitcher.com/premium and using the promo code I Weigh. Lastly over I Weigh, we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at 18186605543 or email us what you weigh at IWeighpodcast@gmail.com. And now we would love to pass the mic to one of our fabulous listeners. Here is an idea from one of our listeners. I weigh constantly trying to figure things out for the sake of becoming better and being completely dead sick of living in a world where most others don’t. Also, I’m make kick ass pumpkin muffins totally from scratch. That’s actually really fucking impressive.