I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today!

 Chris and Des give their official goodbyes as they wrap on I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today. We hope that we helped you cope with our weekly group therapy. Now it’s time to go do ! Thank you so much for being a part of this experience, and keep an ear to the ground for more from Chris and Des in the future! ==================== Subscribe, watch and listen to I'm Not Even Supposed to Be Here...

Everyone’s got a take — and Chris and Des are tired of hearing most of them. This week they unpack “Two Cent Nation”: the online archetypes who mistake a platform for expertise, from performative allies and Dunning-Kruger clowns to grifters, lane jumpers, and smugsters. A lighter, funnier episode (after an honest open on Pride and trans rights) with a sharp takeaway: give your attention only to vo...

A week ago, hating AI was a niche opinion. Now it’s the mood of the room — booed commencement speakers, data-center protests, even the Pope. Chris and Des name the new stigma, break down the four reasons the backlash blew up, and draw the Cold War parallels — all while admitting they both use AI and feel conflicted about it. Honest, funny, and a little dystopian. Is AI the new Scarlet Letter? ====...

In the ‘youth in crises’ finale, Chris and Des hand the mic to two Gen-Zers — Julia Bevolo and Jayden Torres — and ask what it’s actually been like from March 2020 forward. COVID-disrupted college, Snapchat at 12, the looksmaxxing rabbit hole, $20 movie tickets, the lazy/entitled label, Scott Galloway’s drinking advice, and — against the odds — a closing argument for hope. Group therapy disguised...

Part 2 of The Kids Are Not All Right traces youth in crisis through the digital era — the ’90s, 2000s, and 2010s. Chris and Des draw the line from 1992’s pickup-artist manuals and the heroin chic era to today’s incel forums, pro-ana Tumblr and the modern manosphere. Plus: Chris’s 30-year cycle theory, a story about an 11-year-old getting bullied online by a grown adult, and a closing question wort...

Every generation gets a panic about its kids — and every generation’s panic looks deeply stupid in hindsight. In Part 1 of a new three-part series, Chris and Des trace how the modern “teenager” was even invented, then walk the timeline through Elvis’s hips, James Dean, the 70s nihilism of Over the Edge, Chris’s 80s coming-of-age in Ames, Iowa, and the slacker label that never quite fit. The setup...

The melting pot was supposed to be America’s most generous self-description. Turns out it’s one of our most carefully curated myths. In the finale of the Crumbling American Myths series, Chris and Des trace ‘melting pot’ from a 1908 play to a Schoolhouse Rock earworm to the 2026 Supreme Court. Chris discovers that ‘melt’ always meant assimilating into whiteness, and even then only a narrow band of...

Part 2 of our Crumbling American Myths series tackles the big one: American exceptionalism and the U.S. global brand. Chris and Des trace the arc from WWI creditors to post-WWII superpower to—as Chris puts it—“the Sears of global brands.” They walk through three body blows that shattered the “shining city on a hill” image, share international polling data that will make you flinch, and close with...

The American Dream was supposed to be a promise: work hard, get ahead, retire happy. But what if it was always propaganda? In Episode 14, Chris and Des kick off a three-part miniseries on Crumbling American Myths by dismantling the biggest one first. They trace the term to its ironic 1931 origin, unpack why “bootstraps” was always meant to describe the impossible, and lay out the brutal data: 40 y...

A jury just ruled that Meta and YouTube were “deliberately built to be addictive.” Chris and Des have been waiting for this moment and it just happens that it landed the same week the analog revolution smacked Chris in the face at the Mall of America. In this free-flowing episode, Chris and Des unpack Big Tech’s “Big Tobacco moment,” the irony of #analoglife trending on TikTok, and the deep human...

If you’ve ever called someone a narcissist, been told you’re being gaslighted, or diagnosed yourself via TikTok, this one’s for you. Pop psychology has gone mainstream. Therapy terms flood our group chats, dating app bios, and Netflix watchlists. But what happens when clinical language enters everyday conversation without the clinical expertise behind it? In this episode, Chris and Desiree sit dow...

If you've ever voted for someone you didn't believe in because the alternative was worse, this one's for you.  Harm reduction voting — the idea that you should support the lesser of two evils to prevent greater damage — has been the Democratic Party's core ask since 2000. In this episode, Chris and Desiree trace the concept from its origins in AIDS-era public health (needle exchange programs, not...

If you've ever opened your phone and within 30 seconds gone from a bombed city to a Holiday ad to a dead child to your niece at a pumpkin patch, you already understand cognitive dissonance. You're just living it. In Episode 10, Chris and Desiree name the thing that's been eating at all of us: the crushing gap between a world that is genuinely on fire and the expectation that we still function, per...

If you've ever wondered whether any of this is working — the marching, the sharing, the showing up — this episode is for you. Diana Rhodes has been organizing since before reproductive justice was funded, before harm reduction was named in public health spaces, before any of it was mainstream. She's seen backlash cycles before. And she has something to say about this one. This episode covers: why...

If you've ever stared at your bank statement wondering when you subscribed to that — and whether you actually own anything anymore — this one's for you. Episode 8 breaks down the business model behind shrinkflation, algorithmic pricing, subscription traps, and the quiet death of ownership. Chris and Des call it what it is: shittification. And they trace exactly how we got here — from the paper pri...

If you've ever felt guilty for still using Amazon/Apple/Netflix despite everything—this episode is group therapy. Chris and Des get uncomfortably honest about their own boycott failures, unpack why brand dependency is a feature (not a bug) of modern capitalism, and walk through Scott Galloway's framework for actually making consumer resistance work. You'll learn: - Why boycotts succeed (Montgomery...

If you've ever wondered how we got to a place where grandmothers defend ICE killing protesters, business leaders stay silent on human rights violations, and empathy itself is called a "weakness"—this episode is your group therapy session. Chris opens with justified rage at the "Necessary Conversation" podcast, where a MAGA mom twists herself into pretzels defending the ICE killing of Alex Pretti i...

If you've ever watched mainstream media soften authoritarian language and wondered if you're the only one noticing: You're not. This week we unpack "sanewashing": the practice of making insane statements and authoritarian behavior sound normal and reasonable. From Trump's cognitive decline to media ownership by billionaires who need chaos to stay profitable, we break down why the news feels like g...

If you've ever wondered whether you're being paranoid or whether your survival instincts are finally kicking in—this episode is for you. Desiree predicted it at Thanksgiving 2024: "We're going to experience things we never thought we would." Now, with ICE raids in Minneapolis, transgender family members making escape plans, and the Handmaid's Tale's "Little America" feeling less like fiction and m...

Why did the media treat Ryan Coogler's box office hit "Sinners" with skepticism while breathlessly hyping Josh Safdie's "Marty Supreme"—which made a fraction of the money? We trace the disparate coverage back to one source: Penske Media Corporation, which owns Variety, The Golden Globes, Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, and more. Turns out when one company controls entertainment j...

If you've ever thought "I can't just sit here scrolling anymore" but had no idea where to start - same. This episode is for every exhausted professional who wants to DO something but doesn't know what. Chris and Des explore citizenship beyond voting: local politics, organizing, legal aid, documentation, and finding your role in the fight. Recorded hours after the Minneapolis Ice shooting, this is...

If you've ever wondered why your family relationships feel like they have higher stakes than ever, this episode explains why. We're not talking about the therapy discourse around "toxic families" or whether Oprah and Mel Robbins are right about going "no contact." We're talking about the thing almost nobody is discussing: 26 states have filial responsibility laws that can make you legally liable f...