Josh Sargent

The script is different but the wording is always roughly the same. Every few months some retiring journalist, former tech-mogul or aspiring Tomi Lahren-type goes viral because they’ve had it up to *here* with these gosh darn millennials. Between their clamoring for single-payer healthcare and their complaining about unpaid internships, it’s like they hate America or something. Why can’t they appreciate what they’ve got and be exactly what the generation before wants them to be?

We’ve heard it a million times and, frankly, it’s all bullshit. You know how we know? Because every generation has been lodging the same 4 complaints about their successors since the beginning of the written language (and probably before that too). Grug and all the other teens don’t care about hunting mammoths like their fathers, they just sit around playing with those newfangled *wheels* all day. As long as we keep having kids, this will happen until the end of time.

On this week’s podcast, resident Gen-X’er-in-chief Jack O’Brien welcomes young upstarts Katie Goldin, Brett Rader and Josh Sargent onto the show to discuss why this never-ending argument is bullshit. They discuss some flaws in logic behind popular anti-millennial rants and call out some shady statistics that news outlets circulate to prop-up these arguments.

And make sure to get tickets to our next LIVE Cracked Podcast, coming up on Saturday, May 13th at 7pm at the UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles. Jack O’Brien is joined by Cracked’s Carmen Angelica, Alex Schmidt and Michael Swaim, and comedian Blake Wexler to combine the podcast’s two favorite topics: great moments in history and binge drinking. 

They’ll discuss the drafting of the US Constitution, the Russian Revolution and other famous moments in history where everyone was completely sh*tfaced. Tickets are only $7 and available here: https://goo.gl/PWmm2y

Footnotes:

Article: Cracked: This Millennial Rant Deserves A Trophy For Being Most Wrong: https://goo.gl/7xeex8

Article: The Society Pages: Adventures in Garbage-Millennial Confirmation Bias: https://goo.gl/cri4JA

Article: Cracked: 5 Lies Millennials And Baby Boomers Believe About Each Other: https://goo.gl/lFWuCt

Article: Cracked: 4 Terrible Parts of Pop Culture (With Weird Bright Sides): https://goo.gl/fIEPXj

Article: The New Yorker: The Big Uneasy: https://goo.gl/RyCzrx

Article: The New Yorker: The “Founder” Generation’s Creation Myth: https://goo.gl/Fn73e8

Book: Morley Winograd: Millennial Momentum: https://goo.gl/PfxdRb

This episode is brought to you by Audible (www.audible.com/CRACKED) and Adam and Eve (www.adamandeve.com code: CRACKED).

So after seven books, eight movies and a trip to Universal Studios, you think you would prefer to go to Hogwarts than live in real life. Everyone gets assigned a very useful pet owl, you can fly around on broomsticks and you don’t have to stick to MLA formatting or learn differential geometry. Sounds great! Except everyone is dying all the time.  Cedric Diggory. Dead. Fred Weasley. Dead. Let’s face it, if there was an evil wizard trying to put an end to humanity on the campus of Ohio State, people would stop going there.

Just to recap – Hogwarts: 

Pros: magic and other cool stuff

Cons: death is everywhere.

By this logic, our goal this episode is to figure out what would be the best fictional school to attend. We found that most schools in fiction have a much higher death rate than the normal high school or university. We’ll take that into consideration. 

Co-hosts Jack O’Brien and Daniel O’Brien are joined by Cracked’s Josh Sargent and Alex Schmidt, and comedians Alison Leiby, Brandie Posey, Riley Silverman and Steven Wilbur to talk Hogwarts, Starfleet Academy, Sunnydale High and more.

Footnotes:

Alison Leiby’s Website: https://goo.gl/Dk4XHS

Alison Leiby’s Standup: https://goo.gl/nFm8P3

Brandie Posey’s Website: http://goo.gl/evH4MH

Brandie Posey’s Standup: https://goo.gl/7gVzdI

Riley Silverman’s Website: http://goo.gl/CNZZYj

Riley Silverman’s Standup: https://goo.gl/ADU1qG

Steven Wilber’s Website: http://goo.gl/OH9jB9

Steven Wilber’s Standup: https://goo.gl/8vJBl1

Cracked: The 5 Most Depraved Sex Scenes Implied By Harry Potter: http://goo.gl/RVSM5

Cracked: 6 Horrifying Implications of the Harry Potter Universe: http://goo.gl/uiaMd

Cracked: Why Hogwarts Was All in Harry’s Head: http://goo.gl/xLALu

Cracked: My Brief Time as a Student at Hogwarts: http://goo.gl/M05Mm

Cracked: After Hours: 5 Movie High Schools That Would Suck To Attend: https://goo.gl/yNRe8H

This episode is sponsored by Wealthfront Veritone, Magoosh, and the Now Hear This Podcast Festival.

Will Smith famously turned down the role of Neo in ‘The Matrix’, a decision that created the current timeline in which we live, where Obama is President, Prince is dead and Keanu Reeves is making awesome John Wick movies. Meanwhile Smith is playing second fiddle in poorly – reviewed DC expanded universe movies and is probably questioning  when it all went wrong. 

The chronicle of filmmaking is peppered with anecdotes like these; crazy what-ifs that had they gone the other way, maybe history wouldn’t be totally different ,  but the movies we love would. 

On this week’s podcast, Jack O’Brien is joined by Cracked columnists David Christopher Bell and Josh Sargent to talk about  some of these movie what-ifs and then take it one step further: think of some  disappointing movies  from the last few years that would be fixed with one simple change.

Footnotes:

Cracked: 6 Reasons ‘Jurassic World’ Killed Its Biggest Hero: http://goo.gl/Kk4a7R

Cracked: 4 Surprisingly Simple Fixes for Famously Bad Movies: http://goo.gl/lVNbpG

Cracked: 5 Famously Terrible Movies That Were Almost Great: http://goo.gl/ZQAEFB 

Cracked: 6 Famously Terrible Movies That Were Almost Awesome: http://goo.gl/qYUf2

Cracked: 35 Last-Second Casting Changes That Altered Movie History: http://goo.gl/RUak4z

Cracked: 5 Movies That Were One Flaw Away From Being Classics: http://goo.gl/PeHrn

Bruce Willis’ Crazy ‘Red 2’ Interview: https://goo.gl/Kc5rxj

Film School Rejects: The 8 Worst Parts of Prometheus Made Sense in the Original Script: https://goo.gl/7T8MU6

This episode is sponsored by Magoosh, Spotify, Loot Crate, and the Now Hear This Podcast Festival.

Do you find yourself getting irrationally mad when you’re cut off by the car plastered in bumper stickers warning about the danger of contrails? When you’re walking on a sidewalk and there’s a group of people in front of you, do you want to run them over with a snowblower because they’re arranged in such a way that it’s impossible to navigate around them? When there’s someone in a coffee shop talking loudly on their phone, do you want to plunge them and their stupid conversation to the bottom of the Mariana Trench for the rest of time?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you’re not being an asshole, that’s just evolution baby. Apparently we’re hard-wired to think people are jerks and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.

To commemorate the arrival of ‘Difficult People’ season 2 on Hulu, Jack O’Brien, Josh Sargent and Alex Schmidt discuss the scientifically proven ways humans are just awful–from our bad driving habits to the cognitive bias that proves why stupid people think they’re smart. Trust us, it’s not you, it’s them.

Footnotes:

– David Dunning: We Are All Confident Idiots: https://goo.gl/yclkfl

– Cracked: 6 Scientific Reasons People Drive Like Assholes: http://goo.gl/gk4s

– Cracked: 5 Scientific Reasons You’re a Bad Employee: http://goo.gl/X5SD

– Cracked: 6 Obnoxious Behaviors That Make You Better at Your Job: http://goo.gl/eorSF6

– Cracked: 5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think: http://goo.gl/XtQGF

– Robert Sapolsky – Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: https://goo.gl/Ji7S4G

– Watch Difficult People on Hulu: http://goo.gl/ZHNQpt

– Difficult People on Instagram: https://goo.gl/lLva2S

– Difficult People on Twitter: https://goo.gl/TBdkeD

– Difficult People on Facebook: https://goo.gl/fHma0d

Sorry to get personal, but which way do you wipe? The only reason we ask is because a recent thread (http://goo.gl/49Viln) melted the Cracked.com forums when our dear readers realized that people had slightly different bathroom preferences than them.

As we looked upon the carnage, we realized there are so many insignificant topics that people feel almost violently confident about: hanging your toilet paper over or under, oxford commas, whether to say ‘the’ before the number of a freeway. No matter which side of the aisle you come down on, you know that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong and should probably be sent via a rocket into the sun.

These insignificant topics are what we’re talking about on this week’s podcast. Special guest-host Soren Bowie is joined by Cracked’s Cody Johnston and Michael Swaim and comedian Annie Lederman for a graphic conversation about what these topics are and why they’re so easy to fight over.

Also make sure to buy tickets to our next LIVE podcast taping on Saturday June 11th at 7pm at the UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles!

Every summer we’re treated to the same buffet of three or four science fiction movies with the same basic conceits. There’s man vs. aliens, man vs. robots, man vs. army of clones and man vs. complicated time travel rules. With virtual reality and self-driving cars fast approaching, it’s time to consider what type of sci-fi movie we want to be living in for the rest of our lives. Co-hosts Jack O’Brien and Adam Tod Brown are joined by Cracked’s Tom Reimann and Josh Sargent and comedians David Huntsberger, Adam Newman and Caitlin Gill to figure out which sci-fi trope would be the best to make a reality.

Tickets are only $5 and on sale here: https://goo.gl/EjlM4L

This episode is sponsored by Squarespace.

Why do we think Ned Flanders is so lame? He’s outgoing and nice, is always happy to lend out his lawn equipment and looks amazing in ski-wear. 

Let’s first start off by saying, no, the theme behind this episode is not why left-handed people are lame, but we are talking about giving hugs and high fives, staying away from cigarettes and alcohol, loving thy neighbor and all of the attributes we normally credit to boring people. Unfortunately for many of our dear readers and listeners, it’s actually scientifically proven that working hard and having less fun leads to a longer, healthier life. 

On this week’s episode, Jack O’Brien, Josh Sargent and Alex Schmidt discuss the ways that uncool behavior is actually beneficial to both the individual and society overall. They try to figure out why, despite all this, our culture still loves the bad boy and thinks nice guys finish last.

Footnotes: 

Allure of the Antihero: http://goo.gl/tNJz7M

Do High Fives Help NBA Players?: https://goo.gl/7OJlY9

LA Times: Why Loma Linda Residents Live Longer: http://goo.gl/S9s5Jk

Wired: Why Some Animals Are Becoming Nicer: http://goo.gl/Lbh3nP

Terror Management Theory: https://goo.gl/2KEAcy

Gizmodo: Why Do People Take Selfies in Emergencies?: http://goo.gl/nUJzBG

Cracked: 5 Sucker Behaviors That Secretly Give You an Advantage: http://goo.gl/40LAcN