Craig Jones trolled his way into the NYT

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome back to Fighting Matters. I am Steve Kwan from BJJ Mental Models. I got my pal Jesse Walker from Rough Hands BJJ on the line. How's it going, Jess? Speaker 2: Steve, how are you? We just, uh, I'm still full from Thanksgiving, so. Speaker 1: And you've already got the Christmas tree up, man. Speaker 2: And we've got the tree up, right? Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't waste time. Like the minute Thanksgiving is over, the tree is up. I can respect that. Speaker 2: We we love our holidays at this house. Speaker 1: Understandable. Well, we've got a cool guest on the line today. We've got Adrian Nathan West on the line. Nathan, my friend, how's it going? Speaker 3: Things are good. Speaker 1: Nice. I'm glad to have you here, man. Now, why don't you give everyone a quick intro? We're going to talk about the New York Times article that you wrote recently. Uh, I believe it's titled The Athlete Trolling His Way Through Jiu-Jitsu's Culture Wars. This is a great piece on Craig Jones and some of the online battles he has had with our friend Gordon Ryan. But before we get into that, maybe give yourself a quick introduction because in addition to training Jiu-Jitsu, you've got a pretty accomplished background in terms of your your writing and authorship work. Speaker 3: Sure. So, I'm, um, really a novelist and essayist. So, uh, I have a novel called My Father's Diet, which if you're, you know, it doesn't have Jiu-Jitsu in it, it does have a little bit of pro wrestling and it has some weightlifting in it as well. Um, it's a father-son story about a father who sort of loses his, um, I won't say his sanity, but things start to fall apart for when he enters a physique transformation challenge. Um, I write a lot of book reviews for a lot of different media. I write very frequently for The Baffler. Uh, for them, I've written about steroids, I've written about drill music in Philadelphia. Uh, so I, you know, I try to stay busy. Yeah. Speaker 1: Nice, nice. And let's maybe introduce the piece as well. So, this just came out very recently and it was all over Reddit. Of course, got shared a lot on the internet as you can imagine. Um, it's nice to see a piece in the New York Times that I would say is kind of a uplifting and a bit of a good thing because normally when Jiu-Jitsu gets covered by major outlets like the New York Times, it's because something terrible happened. So, it's nice that this time that's not what happened. Um, but why don't you go ahead and talk about what you wrote? Speaker 3: Sure, it's funny what you that you mention that because I kind of looked through the New York Times before I did the pitch to see what's been written about Jiu-Jitsu before there. And so they have The Athletic, which has been sort of spun off, and they have had some Jiu-Jitsu coverage in there. But the main thing, of course, is the Cyborg and Fight Sports story, which as you say, is not the best story for Jiu-Jitsu. Um, what happened with this really was I wanted to write a story about CJI3. That was the original plan. Um, I got in touch with an editor there, and she was was quite nice, and we discussed a little bit back and forth what would be the best approach. Um, given that it was going to go in the New York Times Magazine, which is the Sunday supplement. So if you buy it in print, if you're one of the four people listening to this who buy the newspaper in print, it came out today. Um, and what she recommended was a column called Screenland. So Screenland can have to do with television, it can have to do with movies, but it often has to do with viral internet phenomena. And so that was something that really fit. And so we decided that we would focus on Craig Jones and particularly Craig Jones's expert online trolling. Um, and something that was important for the paper was how can we make this connect with a broader audience and how can we, um, draw out some bigger themes here. So naturally, I'm a Jiu-Jitsu fan. I was perfectly content to just write about Craig Jones and hilarious things that he did on the internet. But we wanted to pull that out a little bit. And so that's what we ended up doing and looking at how Jiu-Jitsu can sort of feed into politics and, uh, that that ended up being sort of the thrust of the piece. Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a really cool piece just kind of recapping this online battle between Craig and Gordon that has been going on for so long and has really, I think, in many ways elevated, uh, Craig. Um, Gordon, of course, the arguably one of the best Jiu-Jitsu athletes of all time, certainly the best in No-Gi. Um, and Craig has has really managed to explore and build his reputation outside of just being number one on the podium, right? I mean, being behind CJI, so many other initiatives, and just his ability to get attention and content create on the internet is something that is is super impressive. Maybe talk through some of your main findings on this piece, what you kind of found and discovered and what you concluded based on the after you'd written this thing. Speaker 3: So, um, what I can tell you is I'm not a big social media guy, and I've spent a lot of time on Instagram looking at these posts. So, in fact, I ended up downloading Craig's entire, uh, social media history from Instagram to kind of go through it. Um, and one of the things that was interesting to me because I didn't know, I I didn't even have an Instagram account actually before something like 2020, and I really only use it for research. Um, I didn't realize that actually he'd been quite involved with charity stuff from the very beginning. So if you go back and find him when he's a purple belt in Australia, you know, he would be kind of raising money because so and so had cancer, raising money for this sort of charity. Um, and then it was quite nice early on to see that he was traveling around, uh, and had this sort of young and kind of misty-eyed, you know, oh, I'm in America, you know, I'm doing this for the first time and that sort of thing. But, um, what what we really looked at in the piece was Jiu-Jitsu in its relationship to politics. So what I think is important is this. If you look at previous generations, I think it was often the case that a person would evaluate someone according to their politics and that would determine whether they like them or not, you know? So they'd say, well, I trust this guy because he's a Republican and I'm a Republican or something like that. And I think that as the parties are starting to fall apart, you're starting to get this situation where, um, actually people are looking for somebody that they vibe with, and then they'll get their politics from them. And the the marquee example of that, I think, is Joe Rogan, who obviously has a ton of influence in the Jiu-Jitsu world, and you can't really, uh, classify Joe Rogan on a left-right axis, you know? Um, I think he's probably tending more rightward, but he can, uh, change in that regard. And so I think people go, okay, I trust Rogan, and then they listen to what he says. And, um, you know, do I think that that people are logging on and saying, well, what does Gordon think about this? That's what I'm going to think too. Not exactly, but I don't think that that's not happening either. And so, you know, what we looked at is the way that Gordon had originally tried to go viral by being nasty to people. So that was his thing, you know, he would challenge people and he would say, you know, he would pick somebody who was a great of Jiu-Jitsu and say, oh, this guy, you know, he sucks. Um, but then that sort of veered into, uh, I'm going to be really obnoxious because that attracts a certain type of person online. And so it was interesting to watch Craig take that in a different direction, you know? And, uh, it it's curious to me because, for example, you mentioned that Gordon is arguably the greatest No-Gi grappler, which is certainly true. But I think we also have to think, okay, what does that really mean? Like, how old is No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu? You know, if you say that somebody is, you know, if you take Alexander Karelin, right? And you say, maybe this guy's the greatest wrestler. Well, wrestling is a sport with a long lineage and so on. You know, Gordon is bragging about something that is, uh, impressive, but in a certain sense is a is a very short-term thing that's happened so far. And I think that it was nice to have Craig come along and say, well, that's cool, but actually we're just a bunch of sweaty guys in shorts rolling around and acting weird. And so to, you know, to to be posting things like Gordon posted during the pandemic, you know, well, in World War I, people lost this many people, and then they faced the Spanish flu and all this. And to have a person like Craig take a little bit of the air out of that, I think was important. Speaker 1: I I would agree completely. I mean, Gordon has a quite a large platform considering the relative smallness of the sport that we train. And it has been frustrating to see him use that platform to really promote a lot of a lot of dumb stuff. I mean, I got to be honest, I a problem that I have quite often now with Jiu-Jitsu personalities is I see them post incredibly stupid, misinformed stuff on social, and I get myself to thinking, man, if if this person is so wrong about everything else, can I even really trust that they're that right about Jiu-Jitsu? I mean, it seems weird to me that you would post these crazy, unhinged takes about everything else, but just in this one space in Jiu-Jitsu, you've got it figured out. Um, and of course, this is a challenge that we have in in our sport. Um, really any sport, but Jiu-Jitsu especially because it's an individual sport. So much of individual performance is not just about how much you know, but about how athletic you are and how much of a hard worker you are. And I think sometimes that can give a lot of these athletes overconfidence that they actually know a lot more and are a lot smarter than they maybe otherwise, uh, would feel, right? Given given their their level of knowledge of other things in life. So I think sometimes that gives these guys, uh, and girls a a false sense of confidence about how much they know. Next thing you know, they're on their soapbox spouting off all of this politics stuff that is so clearly misinformed. Um, the interesting thing about Craig, like you said, is he was kind of very enigmatic for a while. It's only been in the last year, maybe last few months, where he's really been more open about his political beliefs on the internet. Uh, for a long time, I really wasn't sure where he sat on things. I mean, quite famously, he went on Alex Jones, right? I mean, when I saw that, I thought, fuck, that is a bad, bad look. Like that is that is a really bad look and a huge mistake. And I didn't know what to make of of Craig at that time. Um, but you look at him now, and as the world has gotten more polarized and politics has become harder and harder to ignore, he's been more outspoken about things like the evils of racism, and he's I've seen him post like pro-vax statements. Um, so he's definitely started to get more comfortable living in that world. Um, what are your thoughts on this? Just kind of the the politicization of martial arts like Jiu-Jitsu. It's getting to the point where this kind of stuff is hard to ignore. Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a difficult issue. What I obviously generally think is you should try to talk to people in their field. If you're if you cut your foot open, you shouldn't log on to Reddit, you should go to the doctor and ask him what he thinks about your foot or what she thinks about your foot. Uh, if you want to know whether the Earth is round, you should probably not consult Eddie Bravo about it, you should consult an astronomer and so on and so forth. Um, you know, in the case of Craig, uh, you know, what what I admired was a certain lack of seriousness with it too. Um, you know, I remember him talking about the COVID vaccine and he said, well, I know people who will take drugs that they found off the floor, but won't get vaccinated. And so, um, I think that, you know, he he was wise enough to say, you know, martial arts people are probably not the people to consult about that. And I think he would even say, I'm not the guy to consult about that. You know, you mentioned him with Alex Jones. I think that in some ways, you know, he's very clearly a person who will do things for the sake of the experience. And I understand that being on Alex Jones's show is an experience. And I think that also he probably thought that he was going to get a little more juice out of him than he did. So I was a fan of the El Segundo podcast, and if you listen to his episode with Alex Jones, it's one of the few that's really kind of a dud because I think that he thought he would get Alex Jones to say some really crazy stuff. And Alex Jones, what you find is that if he doesn't have his stick, he doesn't really have a lot to say. And so he was on there and he wasn't ranting and screaming, and so he was kind of, uh, nothing, really. Um, and so, you know, you you just finally get the marquee moment where Craig chokes him out, and you know, that's a little bit of something for us, but, um, but yeah, I think you it's it's a problem because people shouldn't turn to athletes for, uh, their thoughts about politics or about all these other things. But at the same time, it's very natural. People can't help it. They like a person, they feel associated with them, and and they do look up to them. Speaker 1: A challenge I have, uh, had to to learn and deal with is realizing that people don't always make decisions about information rationally. In a, you know, in an ideal world, we would all be completely rational and logical all the time, but we're human beings. Human beings don't do rational things all the time. And the the whole thing about taking advice from athletes outside of their athletic area of expertise, that's a perfect example of that. There's a lot of young men who, um, listen to what people like Rogan say, even though really that's probably one of the worst sources of information you could get on many of these topics. But they they like him, and they've got this parasocial relationship with him where they've listened to him speak for hours and hours and hours, and that creates this bond, this feeling of trust that goes beyond expertise and and merit, unfortunately. So, we live in this world now, almost an idiocracy in many ways, where influencers have this outsized ability to spread information, or in many cases, misinformation. And again, I will cite Gordon as an example of that. The amount of just straight-up bad information, incorrect information that he posts on social, um, is crazy. He just posted a message the other day, um, calling for the death of of Democrats, right? I mean, people I I think you probably saw this as well, but, um, after Trump's statements about how, um, you know, implying that the death penalty may be on the table for the, um, six Democrats who put out that ad saying, you must disobey unlawful orders. You know, Trump put out that thing about how, you know, oh, well, this should be punishable by death. Gordon was all in on that. I mean, he used his platform to agree and say that, yeah, you know, in situations like this, killing politicians makes sense. That is a wild, wild take regardless of your political beliefs. And the problem is, people like Gordon, they appeal to really, really young men. Um, and maybe young men is not even the right word because a lot of these are going to be minors. They're going to be young boys who love Jiu-Jitsu, and they haven't learned how to think critically in the real world yet. So if their entire feed is populated by folks like Gordon, that's going to be where they get a lot of their opinions from. Um, what are your your thoughts on the responsibility of athletes in this space? Should they be using their social like that to try to dispense and and disperse influence and their opinions, or are you of the mind that as so many people say, we should keep politics out of sports? Speaker 3: Well, I think it's a quite complicated issue. So, on the one hand, it seems evident to me that people shouldn't be bad people. You should try not to be a bad person, but that's not very specific advice, okay? Um, but what you've made me think of is a piece I read on Substack recently. Unfortunately, I can't think of the author, but I think if people are listening to this and they want to Google around, they can find it. But it was an article about, uh, political divisions, okay? And the author was hypothesizing, and I think he's largely correct in this, that in many ways, the left-right opposition doesn't work very well anymore. And so he was looking at populism. And so one of his questions was, why do we have left-wing populism and we also have right-wing populism? And his question was, why do left and right-wing populisms often have things in common? And he turns to an idea that is was made very famous by the behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman, which is fast and slow thinking, okay? And so what he essentially says is that you have a part of the population that they think fast and they think intuitively, and those are people that populists appeal to. And then you have people who are willing to think more deliberately and think in steps and be patient and take time, and those people can be appealed to by other political figures. And this isn't necessarily a left and right issue, but the example he gives is if you want to explain how a vaccine works, okay? This is slow thinking. If you're a non-scientist, it's very, very difficult to to read that literature and to understand it and to begin to grasp it. And most people simply don't have the patience for it. And if they're a fast thinker type, and they tend toward intuitive solutions, then what they're going to do is look at people who give them the right vibe and see what those people say. And if you're a big, ripped dude with tattoos and you think Future Kimonos gear is cool, you're going to look at Ryan, and you're going to go, well, what does this guy say about it, you know? Um, you know, I I would like athletes to stay out of this stuff. They're never going to do it, though, because you have people who 24 hours a day, they have a microphone shoved in their face, and this is true whether it's athletes, whether it's actors, whether it's musicians, and they're always going to offer their opinions about it. Um, you know, in an ideal world, I I I'd love them probably to act otherwise. But even with Craig Jones, you run into an issue. Craig Jones makes a lot of jokes about sex and drugs. I happen to think they're hilarious. Um, would I think they were as funny if I had kids, for example? I don't know, you know, because, um, you know, I might be more cautious about, for example, those jokes about drugs and stuff like that. So you then again, you get into an issue of how do parents regulate, you know, what their children see on the internet and stuff like that. Um, I I can't say that I think athletes should be more responsible, except in the sense that I think everybody should be more responsible. Everybody has a moral duty to be a better person, right? So, Speaker 1: Yeah, and and that is really where I struggle with the approach a lot of people take on social media is it just seems so depraved in many ways. I I really believe that part of the reason we train martial arts is because of the pursuit of betterment of the self. We want to be better people. That's why we do this. It's a a vehicle for getting better and being a better person. And to see some of the best in our sport just post these incredibly misinformed, divisive things on the internet, um, is really challenging to me, especially when often that standard is only held one way. I mean, Jesse knows this. We just got a comment yesterday in our feed from someone saying that once again, the the common criticism, you need to keep politics out of Jiu-Jitsu. You shouldn't be talking about this stuff. I check his username. His username is Next Scamdemic. And so I'm thinking, okay, so I'm I'm not allowed to express my political beliefs, but you can literally name yourself after a far-right anti-vax conspiracy theory, and that's okay. So, why is it that I am held to the standard that you yourself will not hold yourself to? Um, and this has very much been a challenge that comes up whenever people, um, like yourself in many ways, kind of push back on some of this toxicness in the sport is people will say, well, this doesn't have a place here. But then you'll see Gordon or Jake Shields, you know, literally profiting and grifting off of this kind of stuff now. I mean, you look at some of the stuff they're doing with, uh, Derek Moneyberg. Literally, not not not just posting this stuff, but trying to turn it into a profit center. And their fans are okay with that. Um, and again, I think that comes down to like what you said, it's not always a rational decision. It's a it's a it's a fast brain decision, a tribal loyalty decision. You know, we do this, you know, we we support this guy not because what he says is right, but because we want to support him. We've already decided he's our guy, he's in our tribe, and whatever he says goes. And I think once you I I think the mistake that many of us make when we try to attack this with rationality is assuming that you can reach these people with just more data and more facts. And I I don't think that works, right? I I think that in many ways, an appeal to emotion and and tribe is probably a stronger way to reach these people. But I I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I there's there's research that goes into this too. And and I think that's absolutely true. Um, are there people that can be convinced by rationality? Obviously, but you can see those people because they're rational people. So this, I think, is another difficulty with a so-called left-right division that, um, let's take an issue like immigration, which can be very divisive. Well, um, I in general am quite pro-immigration. I'm perfectly willing to talk to and respect a person who could be extremely anti-immigration. If that person wants to have a discussion about, you know, whether it be the economic effects, whether it be the cultural effects, whatever. But that's a process of having a discussion where you state a fact, I state a fact, you state an opinion, and we go back and forth. Um, if you're Gordon, you can't have that discussion, you know, because Gordon is just going to post an idiotic meme, uh, or, you know, his video of himself pretending to be a fucking, pardon my French, to pretending to be a border patrol agent or whatever. Um, you know, you're not going to change that with reason. Um, what would change it? Well, I'll tell you, for example, in the case of Gordon, what would change it? If Trump came out tomorrow and said immigration was great, the next post on Gordon's Instagram would be about how immigration was great, probably. Because he's decided that that's the right kind of guy for him to have the same opinions as. Um, you know, how do you get to these people and how do you change them? I think it's a very difficult issue. So if there's always going to be people whose mind you cannot change. That's a fact, right? Um, but I I don't think it's so many people. Um, but then I I think that there are these groups where you need to look at how the appeals were made to them. So if you look at something like the Democratic Party, um, an approach was taken, let's say, roughly from 2018 to 2022, of let's make people feel really bad about themselves, and then they'll change their opinion. Um, and I think that that blew up in a lot of people's face. Um, and we saw that this actually was a really terrible approach. And I I would say this specifically with regard to a lot of sort of male-centered issues, which is something, you know, that I that I have a certain interest in. Um, and so, you know, at the same time, you want to understand people, and I think we should always try to understand everybody, and we should always try to meet everybody where they are. That being said, what you can't do, if you look at a person like Gordon or even a person like Trump, these are people that are incredibly whiny. You can't just let them sit there and throw a temper tantrum and validate everything that they're saying because the things they're saying often aren't valid. So, what is the real truth? The real truth is it's probably going to take ages to get through these issues, right? They're very, very difficult issues. Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely not easy. Jesse, you look like you got a question there. Speaker 2: Yeah, so I I guess, you know, given Craig's approach, um, what what is the conceit in your eyes? What do you think he's accomplishing by his kind of online persona? Speaker 3: Sure. Um, well, it's certainly very entertaining. I have to give him credit for that. So, um, as I say, for me, really, I use Instagram for things that I am researching. Uh, I don't have any posts or anything like that, but I do pretty routinely check it because it's very funny. Um, and I think that that humor has the simple value, which is making you laugh. I think it has another value, which I mentioned at the end of the piece, which is ridiculing something that people take too seriously. And on the one hand, maybe that knocks the people who are too serious down a notch. And then on the other hand, I think it takes those of us who are having fun and sort of floats us up a little bit. And we go, okay, I'm kind of doing the same thing as this guy. Like, I'm just trying to have a good time and I'm just trying to joke around. And I think that that part is nice. But you can also look at things that Craig has done that are really good. So, I think if you look at the Guardian Project stuff, this is undoubtedly something that's really lovely. You know, if you look at, um, what's happened with athlete pay. So, he literally trolled Bo Jackson into paying athletes more, which is a pretty big deal. Um, you know, and I think with CJI, you know, is this the future of the sport? Um, I I don't know. What he's been able to do with women's pay, is it sustainable? These aren't things that I have an answer to, but what they have done is set the bar in a different place. So that, you know, if you now, if you're going to offer, you know, a Fion Davies or a Sarah Galbauer or whoever, if you're going to say to them, uh, 2,000 for a super fight, they have a leg to stand on when they say no. So, um, I would say that at least in in in our small world of combat sports, that's a pretty big deal. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's great. It was interesting, you know, we talk about we we've talked about, you know, the concept of purity testing and and that sort of thing a number of times, uh, on the pod. Uh, I I'm I've been I'm really curious about kind of the response from both sides, uh, and maybe even in particular more on the left-leaning side. I mean, I I think I saw some comments on Reddit of like, you know, how can you give this guy any credit for being a positive? He had Alex Jones on his podcast and, you know, if there's any missteps on, you know, the left side of things, again, we're holding ourselves to this standard that nobody else is holding themselves to. Um, are they able to hear that message? Are they able to see kind of the good and the the the positive influence that he's having? Or is everybody just angry? Speaker 3: You mean people that are more left-leaning? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 3: Um, you know, I can only speak for people I know personally. Uh, and I feel like, yes. You know, so one of the things is it's the internet. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? So like the people that complain the most are going to be the people that tend to get the most likes on their comment or, you know, can get the most followers or whatever. Um, and so I think we do need to abstract away from that a little bit and look at where people we know are. So I, you know, for in my case, because I travel a lot, I train at a lot of different gyms or whatever. And so, um, you know, I feel that he's got a lot of fans, and I feel that he's got a lot of fans among those sort of left-leaning people, but these aren't necessarily people who are who are online virtue signaling all the time, as you say. So, um, you know, when you mention somebody the people that want to have a purity test, these are the people that are all over the internet and they're constantly showing off who they are because that's their purpose in life is to show how virtuous they are. Those of us who don't want to do that, we don't wake up in the morning and go, oh my God, you know, I need to think of something awesome about myself to post to show people how great I am. And so you may not see those people's reaction. But I think from people that I know personally, I think that he has quite a following, and I think it's evident on the internet that he has quite a following too. Um, so I do think that he's getting embraced by those people. You know, maybe not by the squeakiest wheels, but these are people that are going to be hard to win over no matter what, right? Speaker 2: How about things on the right? Uh, you know, uh, Gordon's brigade of of goons that come after people, uh, when they write anything negative about Gordon. Have you, uh, have you come across any of that stuff? Speaker 3: So, I haven't gotten in my email. Uh, what I have gotten, you know, I was curious to look, uh, you know, email, that's advanced technology, right? So, uh, I've I've looked to see some comments and stuff. You know, one of the things I've seen is, you know, why can't we just keep politics out of this? And, um, you know, you start to say, well, there's I did write an article about that. You could read the article rather than comment about this and so on. You know, I had obviously people say, you know, uh, are you somebody had a comment that one of you guys deleted, I think, you know, about me being gay and autistic, or when did I come out to my mother, which is pretty classic, like Gordon IQ level material. Um, but I haven't had any real strong engagement. Probably the closest thing would be a couple of people asking me if there really is this right-leaning tendency in Jiu-Jitsu. And I think some people doubted that. Um, I understand that doubt because what what I find personally when I train is, um, individual guys that I meet or that I roll with, they they don't express those opinions, and it's probably more likely even that I would see those more left-leaning opinions. But as you mentioned, Steve, when you start looking at high-level athletes or when you look at coaches and stuff, this is where you really start to see the weirdness express itself. Now, what I believe is that two things. One, I think that a lot of these people are more comfortable expressing themselves on the internet than they are necessarily saying these things in person. And then I think two, um, people feel that they they can't express those things until maybe they get to a coaching level or to a high-level athlete level. And then they say, oh, well, you know, I won pans, so I'm obviously a genius. So let me tell you guys what I think about voting machines, you know? Speaker 1: Well said, well said. Um, I I would love to know maybe we could talk a little bit about the process of getting this done. I noticed that when you did your AMA on Reddit, there were a lot of questions from people asking, number one, what is the process like of getting an an article into the New York Times? And number two, how can I do that? You know, if I have an interest in in the written word as a medium, and I want to maybe make a job out of this, what does that look like? I mean, anyone, of course, can go and post stuff on Substack, but I think many people are not really aware of the level of diligence that has to be done if you want to make it into a paper of record. Could you maybe talk about what that process is like? Like, how do you how do you even convince the New York Times to do an article on an Australian Jiu-Jitsu guy who's famous for shitposting? Like, how and then how do you fact-check, how do you get published, what do what does that look like, and how would that be different from me just posting on my blog? Speaker 3: It's a good question, and it's kind of a funny question because one of the more frequent things that people ask me was, you know, well, why didn't you include this? Well, why didn't you talk more about this? And I think at one point I said to somebody, well, listen, it's not like I turned to Mr. New York Times and say, listen, I'm going to write an essay about this Australian guy you've never heard of. Can I have 6,000 words to tell you about how hilarious it was that he sold this guy's Miata, you know? Uh, it actually is a more difficult process than that. And, um, you know, for for me, it was kind of a miracle to get that piece in there. So the way the process started was this. I had originally hoped to cover CJI3, um, or CJI2, I'm sorry. And my thought had been, I want to go out to Vegas and I want to try to hang out with these guys and and really do a sort of portrait of how it happened, why it happened, and so on. Um, and I pitched that to a couple of places, and I got a positive response, which I hadn't necessarily anticipated. But, um, you know, one place said, oh, it sounds great, we don't have enough money. Uh, one place said, well, we've got an MMA piece coming out, so we really can't do it. And so I happened to have a contact with an editor at the Times, and, um, she was really lovely, and she said, this sounds great. I think I was fortunate because the Craig story is funny. And so you can include some things in a pitch email that get a chuckle out of somebody, and they say, okay, well, maybe this isn't just, you know, men in underwear beating on each other, right? And so, um, she responded, and she said, well, I think what we can try to do is this piece for the Screenland section in the New York Times Magazine. Um, and so then, you know, I sent in an original a first draft, and she was quite happy with the first draft, and there was a waiting period. And then, um, you're asking about the process. So, then what happens with the process is, well, this thing is unclear. Um, this thing will be difficult for non-Jiu-Jitsu practitioners to understand. Um, we need to have some of this so that people who don't know anything about Jiu-Jitsu will understand why they should even be bothering to read this article, and so on and so forth. And so what ended up happening is, you know, uh, I'd put a piece in, I'd take a piece out, uh, you know, I'd move a piece up here. So, for example, the original piece began with, uh, an explanation of the B-Team breakup. Um, but then we found that there was a problem because one, it was based on innuendo. Two, to go into it takes up a lot of space, and I had only a certain amount of words. So, we ended up cutting it. Um, and then once you get something that looks like your piece, uh, then it goes to fact-checking. And the fact-checking is insanely rigorous. So, um, that was something where I was really quite impressed with the work that the fact-checker did because it's really every single detail. Um, and then, you know, once that's done, you sort of get one final edit, and then then it goes out. So, Speaker 1: I noticed someone, uh, asked you and and basically said, you know, when you wrote this article, you, you know, you were talking about Craig's drug use. How could you do that without any any proof? And you responded, basically said, like, look, I can't share details, but all I can tell you is the New York Times fact-checks things really rigorously. And I I think this is a challenge I I think this is a challenge people on the internet sometimes struggle with, right? Is they, um, they want all of the data presented to them specifically. They want to know and they want to see all of they want to see the tea spilled, they want to know all of the drama and all of the details. But they often don't understand that, you know, there's such a thing as an anonymous source. You can't always just burn, you know, burn your sources that way. Sometimes you have to trust the paper of record or trust the outlet that, hey, we did this. We can't tell you how we did it, but we did we did fact-check this. And that can be very unsatisfying to people who already don't trust the media, right? Um, what are your thoughts on on that? Can you maybe explain that process of like, how you validate and fact-check these things, but at the same time, how you how people can know to trust these sources even if they don't know the details? Speaker 3: Yeah. So, it's a difficult thing. I think there's even a psychological difficulty with it because we don't live in a very discrete era. So, you know, it's a common thing to see, for example, I'm on X. You go on X, and people will have a spat with somebody, and they'll post screen caps of their text message exchanges. Um, you know, these are things that for a certain generation of people are utter madness, and for another generation of people, they come very naturally. Uh, and I think by the same token, it's difficult to convince some people that there is such a thing as professionality, and that professionality is often based on relationships of trust and relationships of confidence. Me knowing that you're not going to go on the internet and say what I said to you about something like this. And obviously, when you get to the level of writing for something like the Times, you know, this is very important. And this is another thing people also don't understand. Uh, this is a part of what I do for a living, you know? And so, um, if you do these things for a living, you need to, uh, your relationship with your editors is more important than your relationship with, you know, uh, whoever on Reddit, for example. Um, and I and I I don't owe anything to a person on Reddit. Um, having said that, um, skepticism in the media, I think, is a difficult issue because one, we know that skepticism is a virtue. We know that people should be skeptical of things that they read. But when it's just your knee-jerk reaction, then you're not actually being skeptical, you're just being a dick, if I can put it that way. Um, so, for example, I I thought about this because today I read an article in the Times about a Russian general who had been trained in Kansas, and then he had gone back and he had fought in the Ukraine war. And it was a very interesting profile of this person. And there's no point where you would read this and say, oh, this is fake news. It's very self-evidently well-researched and sympathetic, and it's not judging the guy, and it's not pushing a political line. And so when somebody starts yelling fake news, I think, well, they didn't read this article. You know, they're just repeating something that they heard. I don't think there's anybody who has a subscription to the Times and is calling it fake news. You know, you may disagree with editorial pages, but again, this is a problem where I think a lot of people don't understand that editorial pages aren't the news. You know, there's the news stories, and there's the editorial section, and and there's restaurant reviews, which may be subjective. And I don't think people understand that those things are different. Um, you know, what what I would have to say is that, um, you know, things get checked. That's all I'll say. I won't say things never slip up, uh, because we all know examples of that happening. But I I would have to say the process is very, very rigorous. That's all I would really say about it. Speaker 1: You know, even to get your sample, I mean, rigorous to the point of, you know, do do you really know these people? Can you give me this person's email address? You know, uh, I need a screenshot of this. I mean, really every single point of the essay. Speaker 3: People often don't understand that, you know, if you publish something that is patently false and disparaging of someone, you open yourself up to a ton of lawsuits. And the bigger you are as an organization, generally, the deeper your pockets are, and that makes you a much more attractive target for big lawsuits. So, I mean, this happened recently up here in in Canada. Um, the CBC recently did an article on, um, this far-right MMA neo-Nazi event that happened in British Columbia. And a lot of people in the martial arts were slamming the CBC of saying, this is the fake news media. I can't believe they're getting away with slandering these martial artists. And I I keep having to tell people, like, the CBC is a crown corporation up here in Canada. They are a massive news outlet. They are a very, very attractive target for lawsuits. If they're going to publish something that specifically names someone and outs them for attending a Nazi event, they are going to have the facts absolutely buttoned up. Like, they're they're going to make sure that if this went to court, they could defend themselves without any doubt. People like this companies like this and organizations like this don't just post shit for drama and clicks like you would get on social media, right? There's real stakes for a news outlet because, you know, one one bad statement and they can have a lawsuit after them. And I mean, man, it's not just the possible loss of money. There's the risk of going to discovery. Nobody wants to be at the end of a a high-profile lawsuit that they're not likely to win. So when a news organization, especially a large one, and a a publicly funded one or a public company, when they post something like this, they probably have done the work to back up their statements and they're willing to defend it if they have to. You know, you can't get away with just throwing out false information if you're a major news organization. Um, unless you're like Fox News or something. Somehow they do it, right? I mean, obviously there's a line because again, sometimes you you can hide behind editorial and opinion and entertainment. But in many cases, for organizations like the New York Times, I mean, they are a journalistic paper of record. If they were to just start publishing fake stuff, they would get assaulted by lawsuits and they would have no leg to stand on. Speaker 3: And let's be honest, I would like to think that everybody is in the New York Times office right now talking about how wonderful my article was and, you know, how did we ever get this guy Nate West in the paper? But the reality is probably that it's not worth it to the New York Times to have an article about a Jiu-Jitsu guy and have it be any sort of risk. You know, so evidently, um, that that the due diligence has to be done on a piece like that. You know, this wasn't a big scoop that they were ready to jump on. Speaker 1: Jesse, it looks like that question may have percolated now. Do you want to ask it? Speaker 2: So, it yeah, it did. And Nate, this is going to circle us back to the article, I guess, especially since we're getting close to the hour. Um, you're knowing that people like Gordon Ryan or Donald Trump are, um, in some ways so injured by ridicule. Um, is is the Craig Jones approach, should we all just become internet trolls and and as a way of dealing with this kind of far-right madness? Um, is that a lesson that we should be taking from the article? Speaker 3: I don't think so. I think that some people should because some people are good at it and some people enjoy it. Uh, I'll give you an example. I couldn't do it. It would just exhaust me spiritually. And I actually don't like being mean to people. So, you know, if if I had contact with Gordon Ryan, if Gordon Ryan was a person who listened to me, I think I personally would, you know, sort of want to try to understand where he was coming from and try to maybe talk him off the ledge on some issues or something like that because, you know, I'm not it's not that I'm a believer in the inherent goodness of people, but it's just something that I just don't like being a dick. It's not something that I really enjoy. But, you know, um, the the the truth is, probably I would try some sort of, you know, soft, understanding approach, and it probably wouldn't get anywhere. So, you know, the trolling probably is getting somewhere, and it certainly is at least getting people to question that, and getting some people who maybe didn't feel comfortable admitting how uncomfortable they were with it to do so, and to know that they have allies out there. So, you know, I'm what I tend to think is we need a lot of different types of people, and, you know, we do need some trolls, but definitely everybody shouldn't be a troll. Uh, also some people are really bad at it. One thing about Craig is he is talented at that. He's good at doing it, you know? Um, I don't know that I I think I could probably be a good troll, but I would feel terrible about myself. I just can't go online and be mean to people, you know? It's just not me. Speaker 1: Amazing, well said. Well, I mean, that's all of the questions I got. Jesse, anything else on your side? Speaker 2: No, I mean, I I think that was a I think that was a great note to end it on. Speaker 1: Well, thanks for doing this, Nate. I will put a link in the show notes to the New York Times article. Um, but why don't you plug your stuff? If people want to check out your work or your website, where can they find you and more of you? Speaker 3: Yeah, please do so. If you want to see any of my work, links to everything are archived on anathanwest.com. Some of the stuff is paywalled. Uh, you can email me from there if you want to see a paywalled article, I'll send you a PDF. Uh, my novel is My Father's Diet. I very much recommend that you guys look for it. Um, and then I I want to put in a plug for The Baffler. The Baffler is one of the main places that I write. I've done articles on steroids, I've done articles on cocktails, I've done an article on Philly drill music. It's a magazine that I really love, so I hope you guys will check it out as well. Speaker 1: Awesome. And I I noticed on your website, you've got a page that just links out to all of the articles you've written and all of your work. So I will put that in the show notes to make it easy for people to find. Um, but thanks a lot for doing this, man. I think it is super cool to see again, content about Jiu-Jitsu making it to the Times that isn't just a total indictment of the people in the sport. It's it's nice to see that as a change of pace since most of the time it's something about fight sports or some other heinous thing. Um, I I thought it was a really cool piece. I'm impressed that you were able to get that through, uh, and get them to approve something like that, which is so niche and specific to us, but I think it's, uh, I think messages like that are important to put out into the space, um, both because they they kind of set the tone, um, for the sport in the way that I would like to see it set. And also, I think it promotes aspects of the sport that need to be getting more awareness as well. So thank you so much for doing that. Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 2: Thanks, Nate. Speaker 1: Yeah. And thank you to the listeners too. Appreciate everyone, and we will talk to you in the next one. See you then.