Jack Hibbs interviews Kyle Mann, Editor-in-chief of the Babylon Bee

Everybody, we had a great podcast today. We've got Kyle Mann. Kyle Mann is the chief editor of the Babylon B. And we're excited. I think you're going to find some great insights. You're going to find some very powerful truths about how much we need humor in our life, right? Thank God for the Babylon B. So here we go. Want you to put your pods in, turn your volume up, and let's roll with this. Real Life Day. Real Life presents the Jack Kibs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackkibs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now, open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Kyle, I've got to ask you something right now. It says here that you used to be in sales at the Western Water Works Supply Company, and now that you're editor in chief of Babylon B, is that true, or is this a Babylon B? It is absolutely true. Yeah, I was in construction sales for 11 years before I started writing comedy for a living, which is the most bizarre jump. People always assume that I started out. People who write start out as assistant editors or freelance writing before they get into a more prominent role like the editor in chief of a setter site. But it was a bit of a journey. I was always enjoyed comedy. I was enjoyed satire. I was in various different church environments over the years. So you're kind of absorbing it all. And I'm sure we'll talk about it, but comedy and satire is such a good coping mechanism and anyone who's been bashing their head against a keyboard at a sales job all day, knows that you need to retain that sense of humor. So it's kind of a good path when you think about it, that we were using humor to kind of rally the troops and be able to do a nine to five office job day to day. And the Babylon B launched in March 2016. I sent in a joke. It was a Holy Spirit unable to move through congregation as fog machine breaks. And that was our first, that was our first big viral hit. And so the owner of the site said, do you want to be the head writer? And I started doing it. And two years later, I got hired a full time as the editor in chief and made that career jump. Incredible. I love it. I love the fact, and it is a fact that you mentioned that humor and satire is a, it's part of our human function, right? When things are rough and difficult, which is rather interesting, because I've been to other parts of the world where there's, there's cultures where you're actually not really allowed to laugh and they actually don't even want to laugh. I won't name those countries because I have friends there, but they just, as an American, and I'm not saying as an American red, white, and blue, I'm talking about as an American, the way that we're brought up, we often cope with difficult situations, not in a disrespectful way by making something funny. It's actually some form of our ability to survive a challenging event or a bad time. And so for you guys, it's been amazing, because the more pronounced or demonstrative I'm thinking like the Trump era, you guys were so incredibly effective and funny, and now we're in the dark days of Obama or Biden or whoever it is, and it even adds more to your list of, well, because we want to laugh, we need to laugh now. Yeah, humor is such a great, humor has so many functions. There's a prophetic role that it plays in proclaiming truth, and there is a comfort element to it. We get people that write in and say that they're going through the hardest season in their lives, whether that's the death of a friend or family member or just financial struggles or whatever it is. And they say that the only way that they're able to really consume the news is through the Babylon B, because they're able to learn about what's going on in the outside world, but through the satirical lens that helps make them know like, hey, it's going to be okay, it's not the end of the world. We know who's in control of history, so we don't have to worry about this or that little event. When you joke about events, you really give them less power over us. I love it, that's so true, so true. You guys, if I remember right, didn't I see you guys on Tucker, for example, on the Tucker Carlson show? Yeah, we match huge. Yeah, I mean, and you think about that, like how crazy that is, that Christian news satire site, you know, launched six years ago, having this broad cultural impact through things like Tucker Carlson becoming an ally of us, and we're finding these allies out in the world that maybe some of them aren't necessarily allies in faith, or maybe they're not our brothers in Christ, but are actually allies in this culture war, they stand side by side with us in certain issues, defending free speech or whatnot. That's crazy to me, I mean, that we feel humbled and honored, and totally not worthy of that kind of impact. But you should, and I love that, because God is using your platform so uniquely, and I mean, let's be honest. I personally, I don't think that Satan's got a funny bone in his body, having said that, I believe God invented humor, and when we see what you guys are able to communicate to an audience that the church, no evangelist, no pastor, no priest or pope, is gonna get to the audience that you guys are reaching. And you guys are also what I believe is almost, you test the culture, and you not test the culture, you test the person that is consuming your product for the lack of a better term. When somebody reads something at Babylon B, that I think is extremely funny, because, first of all, I have no problem laughing at myself, or what you guys just pointed out is so incredibly true. When I see the person next to me look at it and say, oh, that's despicable, it tells me so much about that. That there's something broken in them, because they can't laugh at that, you know? Yeah, we find that when someone gets very offended by satire, I'm not saying that there's not a line that people can't cross. Like, obviously, there's humor that's got honoring, and there's humor that's not got honoring, and you have to be careful of that. But at the same time, when someone reads a satirical piece, or watches a funny video or whatever, and they get offended, it often says more about the person, than it does about the comedy. You know, I think we consume a lot of comedy that comes from the secular world, and most of the time, if there's a joke about Christians or the church, I can laugh at it and go, yeah, that's kind of true. Exactly. Without getting super offended, or trying to cancel that person, or trying to burn that comedian's whole career down, or whatever, which is not what you see on the left. You know, it's funny, the stereotype of Christians is that we're the kind of 1950s, footy duties that can't laugh at anything. We're the guys who are sitting in the corner at the party, and like, you know, all you guys are having too much fun, and now it seems to me that the secular left has become so zealously religious about their beliefs, so blindly religious that they're now the ones who take themselves so seriously. We still work. Well, that makes a great target for a joke. Like, that's why Hollywood's beat Christians up for five decades, because we were so serious. You know, now it's like, it feels like the church has lightened up and been able to laugh at it. We've been the butt of so many jokes, we're laughing ourselves. Good point. The left wants to tear you down when you make fun of them as we've seen it. Yeah, and they don't know what to do with you guys. Right. They really don't. I don't know who it is, maybe you know, but some famous memeur out there said that progressives or leftists can't meme. Yeah. And you know, it's so true, because you've got to be able to see things in life in such a way. The congregation that I passed her over, they know me, and I disclose it to them that for me, I see things in cartoon fashion. And for me, people think I have a profound memory. I don't. It's just that what I see, I see everything very technicaler. And I see things almost with captions over people's heads. And for that, I'm able to remember a situation or somebody that I've met or their name. But in many ways, it enables me to cope with what's going on as a pastor. I'm not a remote pastor. I'm here hands on. I meet with people who are dying or their child has just been told that there's some gender type, whatever. And the parents are coping. And for me to be able to deal with that, I've got to be able to see this situation in an area of hope. And a lot of people don't equate humor with hope. But there's a great connection. Yeah, absolutely. G. K. Chesterchin wrote a famous essay, well, famous for G. K. Chesterchin anyway. That was called on chasing after one's hat or on running after one's hat. And he made this point that when you've faced some hardship in your life, whether it's large or small, and he uses the example of a distinguished gentleman whose hat blows off his head. And now he's frustrated in his whole days ruined because he has to chase his hat down and be an idiot on the street running as everybody's laughing at him. He looks like a fool. And he says that we should enjoy being the butt of the joke. We should enjoy, you know, see yourself as the star of a sitcom. Not the star of this great drama, you know, and you'll enjoy your life. You'll be much more content in my life. Why can't we, why can't we Kyle enjoy humor at our expense? What's wrong with us? Look, I'm old enough to be your dad. I remember in America that laughed at itself. I grew up in an era where when we did something, it could be laughed at and made fun of. There was something in my day when I was a kid that it was like the Dean Martin roast. You can watch them maybe on YouTube, being Crosby, Bob Hope. I mean, they're ripping into these guys that are on the platform and they're all laughing. I mean, somebody's making fun of Ronald Reagan, the president or the governor at the time, and people are laughing including Reagan. And now you'll get sued for that kind of stuff. What's happened? Yeah, you know, it feels to me like, in order, the power of comedy is a uniting power, right? That when you do find normal people, whether on the left or the right, and there are some people on the left who are kind of at least normal or at least, you know, as the over 10 window shifts. You own numbers, you own numbers. While the over 10 window shifts, you still have some people that are kind of finding themselves left behind by the Democratic Party, as it goes crazy or increasing. But when you can find that common ground, that's what humor helps us do, as it helps us to all kind of come together and laugh at each other. You know, and growing up with groups of friends, you'd make fun of each other for this or that. And you never saw it as, you know, all this guy said this, cancel him, don't. You never cried about it, you never cried about it. I mean, I think the other side of it, as like I was saying before, the second they're left, takes themselves so seriously that they can't laugh themselves. And also, and that's just a difference in worldview. Because what they see is that their political beliefs are salvation, right? Because they don't have an idea of God, they don't have an idea that there's a hope in the future and all this political stuff that we're fighting on, where while there's important battles, you know, Christ reigns over history, we're gonna get there. Like, we know the end, we know the end of the story. We read the book. We can laugh about it, the ins and outs of what's going on. Whereas if they think that their political philosophy will bring heaven on earth, will bring salvation to mankind, then if you were laughing at it, it's like laughing at their religion. Yeah, you're exactly your scoffing and mocking them. Right, they can't cope with that. They can't cope with that. Do you guys have like an arch enemy? Number one type of a, is it a group, or is it a person that just can't handle you guys? They actually maybe even campaign against you somehow? Or is that just a federal government? Well, yeah, I mean, right now it's a massive alliance against us, you know, big tech collusion against us. We've had everyone come after us from CNN to the fact checkers, to Twitter, to Facebook, to the New York Times. We had an XCIA agent that was coming after us on Twitter, saying that we were far right disinformation disguised as satire. It's like this, that was brilliant. You know, I don't know about the whole deep state conspiracy theories or whatever, but it feels like there is this thing, you know, that I don't know if that's a spiritual battle or what that is, but there is this alliance against us, you know, and it is, we are treated completely differently than other, you know, satire sites that are on the left or comedians that are on the left. We get fact checked constantly, you know, and they'll say that we're a... Help me. We're talking satire here and yet fact checked. How does that possibly, give me an example. How does that possibly work out? The last thing I'd ever expect is that for the fact checkers who need fact checking, are fact checking you guys? Yeah, yeah, constantly. I think we might have 40 or 50 different joke fact checks out there. And what's concerning about that isn't, you know, it is funny to me. We did a joke saying that Ocasio Cortez went on the prices right and guess that everything is free. And the... Let's see. And there's a fact check of it on snopes, you know, but to me, it makes the joke funny here. Actually... Oh my gosh. Did you think that actually happened? Because I was... No, my point is, I'm stuplified as to how bad it is that they can't laugh. Right. That's funny, right? It's incredible. It's incredible. That's incredible, you know. AOC had to have laughed at that. Yeah. I don't know. So, right? But to think that somebody got their knickers in a wad over that is both extremely funny and horrifically tragic at the same time. This funny, because if you Google that joke, the first result is snopes. And it says, did Ocasio Cortez really go on the prices right and guess that everything is free, false? You know, then there's a thousand-word debunking of the article, which... They make it. They make you... You know, it says something about the target of the satire. If you can't tell that, that's false immediately, right on its face. But the concern, anything about it, it does make us laugh. But the concern thing about it is that there's this kind of big tech cabal where if a fact checker labels you as false, now Facebook rates you as an unreliable news source. So now your links start to get suppressed on Facebook. You know, and then Twitter and Facebook are talking and then they start to suppress you. And we're banned from Twitter right now too. So because, okay, I'm trying to follow this. Help me out, because this is not my world. But if they ban you guys or label you guys as disinformation or false information, yet you're a satire organization, a comedic product that they've actually put you guys in the realm of opposition politically. You are political opposition. Well, you know, and they don't say that outright. No, they don't. What they say is this is a disinformation side or this side is confusing people. So it's rated down in the metrics. So because it's satire. Yeah, but they don't really kind of acknowledge it. It's satire, it's like false, fact check false. They made a false statement, you know. The very first one we did, one of our first fact checks was we said that CNN purchased an industrial washing machine to spin the news in. And I remember reading that. Today's book tried to take us off their platform. Did you monetize the platform else? Because that was false. Because CNN didn't really buy a washing machine. Because they didn't, well, as far as we know, they didn't, that didn't actually happen. Believe me, I'm sorry, let me, again, I'm stupid now. I'm asking you, was that a real human that decided that to critique you guys like that? Or are those bots, what is that? So this, the way that we think it works is that there's a real human at snopes or the different fact checking sites who decides we're going to fact check this one. And then Facebook has an algorithm that feeds any fact check from snopes and it grabs it on their sciences. All right, this one is labeled as false. You're, you get dinged for sharing a false story. And you know, they do that with USA Today. They do it with AP fact checkers. They do that with snopes. So we've gotten fact check many times on different topics. And so now we have a very low rating in the system. We are purveyor of false information. Has it hurt you guys at all? Oh, yeah, technology side of it. Yeah, absolutely. We get completely suppressed on Facebook. Any link you share to Babylonbee.com, your friends probably won't see. We went from getting, you know, we'd post a joke that would get 50,000 shares, 100,000 shares on Facebook to links that get 10 shares. You know, that's the level of. And it's so obvious that even in our sermons, well, I'm not known to be politically correct. And it is, you know, I'll look and see three days later where a message will have, you know, normally 100,000, something 200,000 views and it's got 57,000 or even, or just 10,000, something's up, something's up. But what about, and we're kind of going into areas that are kind of yet maybe not announced or fully announced. But we've been told on our end regarding religious content that there is some sort of hope coming, part of this truth social team. We've heard that there's going to be things coming where we'll be able to actually speak and preach and do what we do, uncensored. Have you heard anything about that as well? Is there anything that you might be able to say that there is a fair game coming to town? Well, I'll say that there is some hope from different angles and I don't know exactly how everything is going to shake out in the end. But obviously we have only these alternative social sites that are coming out. And that's a positive thing. It's good to be able to put your content on 20 different platforms instead of just the two big guns. At the same time, a lot of those smaller sites, they're not going to drive the same amount of traffic. You're not going to be reaching the same audience. It kind of puts you in this echo chamber you're not reaching the people that you're trying to reach. You know, a Babylon B article that goes viral on Facebook is going to get us a lot more traffic, a lot more exposure, a lot more Tucker Carlson appearances than something that does well on parlor or on treat the social or these different sites. Obviously with things like Elon Musk putting in his offer to buy Twitter, it seems like there is this, even within the big tech companies, there is this pushback. You know, we even saw with Netflix, the Netflix was telling its employees to, you know, if we're going to make non-woke content, you just have to deal with it or quit. So you're seeing a lot of these guys that made this bed that they have to lie in now starting to say, wait a minute, we're going to be in trouble. And you saw it with Twitter with Elon Musk. They're having to clean up their act because they're realizing now that they're doing things that aren't good for business just because they want to push their woke ideology and agendas. So I've been encouraged by some of the developments that we've seen in that area. Something's got to happen. Something's going to give. I mean, people are waking up and rebelling against it. Absolutely. Gosh, I laughed. You guys, something to the effect where Elon Musk was buying Twitter, but he woke up, right, he woke up the next morning, there's like 338,000 board member folks that had been counted during the night. That's right, yeah. That kind of stuff, just, you know, everybody who's watching the news from either spectrum has got to just say, oh, that is funny. So you're Christmas stuff. What's your, what's your favorite? Do you have a genre? Do you have a season? Or for you, is it just each day? So a lot of our process is definitely like waking up in the morning, looking at the news. How can we make fun of this? You know, and you want to, you know, we are there to communicate truth. We are there to, you know, deliver a message that we want to deliver. But at the same time, a lot of the problem with a lot of Christian or conservative content in the past has been that they put the message first in such a blatant and obvious way that, you know, the comedy suffers or the creativity suffers. So we definitely try to do a comedy first approach or humor first approach, where if it's not funny, it's not going to get published. It doesn't matter how good your point is. You know, if you're just, if this is just an op-ed in disguise, then any number of websites could do this. Yeah, this is tons of those. We'd rather be funny, you know. I mean, for me personally, I love doing the classic Christian jokes and church humor jokes, because that's my wheelhouse. That's my world. Making jokes about your own is always my favorite. Absolutely. You know, and some people will get upset that why do you make fun of Christians so much? Because we love Christians. Yeah. And you know what? And it makes the Christian audience that's viewing or reading your content. It makes them stop and look on the inside to ask, is that true? Right. Is that really happening? I mean, honestly, you mentioned, or did you mention it? Do we talk about it before going on on the air about, yeah, you just did about the Holy Spirit, the fog machine. Yeah, right. That kind of stuff. I mean, it's truly, it's like, oh, that's funny. Because look in Christian ministry, we could get so caught up in the lighting and in the fog and in the stuff that we forget to stop and ask God to bless the service. You guys have a disappointing lack of fog here on this set. I've noticed this. If we were pretty tragic. If we were only sensitive to the Holy Spirit, we would have had his fog here. Well, it's just the right amount of fog. So he could move. Well, that's the good. That's the kind of prophetic or cutting edge of satire that it makes you laugh. And then it makes you think. GK Chesterton once said that humor can get in under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle. And that's like so accurate, you know. If you read an article that says like, you know, 10 things you should be doing differently in your worship services. You know, you might already be on guard or like, what are they saying is wrong with my worship services? You know, but if you're out of joke that's just lighthearted making fun of kind of something that we do in worship services, then people are willing to laugh at it and then think, oh, maybe there's something. Maybe we are swinging too far that way or that way or whatever. So take us into the day and the life of being at the, at the bee. What, what happens? Yeah, I mean, it's a super fun group of guys. Well, and that's the funny thing about all the fact checks and the censorship and, you know, one of the things the New York Times said was that we are a, we are far right misinformation source disguised as humor disguised as satire, which is similar to what the CIA agent guy said. And it couldn't be further from the truth because when you juxtapose that against what we do day to day, you know, we're guys that are sitting around in a circle in a very small office, which we're about to get a bigger one. But we're sitting around in a very small office, just looking at each other like, well, what do you got today? What's funny? What's making you laugh, you know? And, and we're making each other laugh. We're cracking jokes, jokes. And, and just looking for the ones that float to the surface, you know, and this come my job as the editor is to like, you know, filter stuff out, you know, that's really funny, but we would get in trouble for telling that joke. You know, a Calvary Chapel would be mad at us for telling that joke, so don't do that one. There's got, oh, no, tell it. Tell it, please. It's got to be, I mean, do you guys ever sitting around that circle? Do you ever just say, you know what? That was such a bad idea. Don't even, don't even try to come up with something like that again. Well, I think a good rule for writing comedy and curativity is having your, having your space where you pitch your ideas, having that be a safe space. And they can. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. No, I know what you mean, but you're right. It should be like that. You're not going to get canceled or lose your career over a bad pitch or a pitch that's too far. Let it loose. You know, you can't write, you can't write creativity, you can't write comedy from a place. You mean first amendment kind of stuff? Right, exactly. Wow. You can't write it from a place of fear. You have to write it from a place of boldness or just being true to what you're, what you're feeling. You know, it has, and that's, I mean, good comedy. What was everybody always say like that joke is so true. You know, and that's why. It's because you're writing something is true. So if you're, if you're writing something just to please an audience or you're writing it because you're afraid, oh, we can't go too far this way or that way. Then it's not, it's you're going to lose your edge. At the same time as the editor, I have to then, I think there is a place for filtering and saying, does that go over the line this way or that way? And that's the editorial process. So that's more I've got the pitches collected. And then I'm kind of filtering through or editing things, you know, trimming off edges to kind of get what we want. We also shoot a lot of videos. Now we're doing a lot of sketch comedy on YouTube and elsewhere. And we're doing podcasts and all that. So then, so good chunk of our week is writing stuff for that. And that's my favorite is sitting down and writing a sketch. You know, we sit down and write an idea. Really. And it's, you know, if you ever sat around with your friends and joked around, I mean, that's the, that's what the feel is for writing a sketch because you're all throwing jokes in and ideas. A lot of fun. I was completely blown away. Cutoffs, cutoffs, surprise, just shocked to actually to see that you guys had interviewed Elon Musk. I can't imagine how that even came together. I would, I would, first of all, have to assume that he's a fan, which is an incredible honor to have Musk as a fan. But to get him into your, right, assume you got him into your offices. We actually flew out to a studio and had him meet us there, kind of closer to him. So it was, it was a whirlwind. It was incredible. Yeah. He had interacted with our content on Twitter and such before where he'd replied to a joke or laugh at a joke, share a battle on B joke, that kind of stuff. So we knew that he was a fan. But, you know, our podcast, we, we typically interview pastors or, you know, apologists and just, you know, we kind of stay mostly in the Christian sphere or comedians, stuff like that. And so Elon Musk was definitely out of our league for an interview. And we had a, we had an assistant podcast producer who, kind of without, without really running it by anyone, just sort of DMing people on Twitter asking if people would come on our podcast, you know. And, and he kind of calls me in a frantically, you know, Kyle, Elon Musk just replied to our Twitter DM, what do I do? And so he basically replied and said, you know, fly out tomorrow and we'll do the interview and, you know, just let me know where to meet you guys. Get a studio and let me know where to meet you guys. And so it was that quick. And we did it. It was out, it was out two days later, you know, we had our podcast production team was working nonstop for 48 hours to do the post production on that and get it out on the YouTube channel. And it was just, it was awesome. Just quite an incredible thing. How did you, how did you find him to be, you know, everybody asked that question, everybody wants to know, what's he like when the, when the mics off and the lights are off? I was great. I mean, he was such a cool person that he came in and sat down and, you know, we were all very nervous, obviously, you know, like this is the biggest interview that we'll ever do. I mean, it's, yeah. It's, we didn't feel worthy or deserving to be doing this, you know, like just, there's other better qualified interviewers that could be doing this. And we sat down and, uh, and he just sat down. He almost started interviewing us. Like, he just sat down like, I love the M1B. How did you guys get started? And, you know, he was just asking us questions. And we're just kind of kind of got off guard trying to answer him. And then we kind of just float into the interview. And it was very, it was almost very informal. And he just, we just let him talk. And such an interesting guy. Obviously, very intelligent. Yeah. And, um, and just a wide range of topics from humor and cancel culture and comedy to, uh, you know, we were asked, asked him a very technical question about his rockets. And he went off for 10 minutes about it. About his toys. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. It's amazing. Yeah. It was quite a cool thing. And then he was gracious enough to hang out with us for another hour or so after the, after the cameras were off. And, and just, just wanted to talk about the M1B and him and, and the way cultures going. And it was very cool. You know, we wish we'd left the cameras on. Wow. Isn't that true? So just personally, what, what do you think, um, he's South African, right? Yeah. But he lives here, obviously, that is. Yes. And, um, so, what do you think he's at? Is he moving more center or right? Or, where's he at in his world view of? I mean, I mean, I was going to say poor guy. Unfortunate guy in the sense that he's, you know, he was there, darling the leftist darling for a long time. And now he's asked people to use their own minds and think. And they hate him now. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's a little bit of both. He's like, he's probably, you know, I can't speak for him necessarily, obviously, but, um, he's probably moving slightly right, while Democrats are moving incredibly left. And so both of that makes it look like he's going far right or whatever. That's a good point. You know, it's just something with Bill Mar, if you watch him now, and then Bill Mar will go on there and say things that sound like, it's just normal things that people believed five years ago make him seem like a far right, not see or whatever. You know, that's like Bill Mar, anyway, you know, that's the stuff that the left will accuse him of, you know, being this far right guy now. And he's like, I'm just saying the boys are boys and girls are girls like, right? So there's probably some of that over to Wendershifting with, with Musk. I think he is probably a classical liberal, you know, there's that he does value free speech that seems to be one of his big rallying crisis free speech and freedom. Right. And that puts him at odds with Democrats nowadays, sadly. That's right. So you being the editor in chief, you've got to know funny when you see funny. Yeah. Right. So it's not just a title for you, you know what you're doing. Is this something that you, that you just all your life? It's the way that God wired you, that you saw things funny. Is it something where there was a click maybe? Was it a movie? Was it, was it an event where something just got the sparks and wheels flying? You know, I always say, I don't know if I was that funny growing up or whatever, but my, my family always says, oh, yeah, you were the, like, you were the clown of the family. Yeah. Like, don't you realize the entertainer, the classical? But I think I was, I always had a dry sense of humor. Like, I, I didn't, I wasn't the over the top. Like, oh, I'm the guy who's gonna throw a pie in his face or whatever. It was more dry commentary or just that rye, wittiness. I love, I love all the old Christopher Guest documentaries, like this Final Tap and Mighty Wind and Best of Show. You know, those are the ones, those are the ones that speak to me, you know, because it's, you're finding this little subculture and you're doing this very dry. Is this, is this real? Is this a joke? I don't know what this is when you first watch those, those movies. So I've always loved that kind of humor and that obviously fits very well with Bamblumbi. So yeah, when I saw the Bamblumbi posted on my, on my Facebook feed the first day at launch, I looked at it and I, this is it, this is what I want to do, you know. I told my wife, we had just moved into a new house and I was still working at the old sales job and I said, I want to do this writing thing full time if it, if it ever happens. Right. You know, and she's, she's been very supportive. You know, she's like, well, if you want to quit and do it, do it. But she in the back of her mind was always like, how is this writing ever going to make money? Like this Christian jokes? You can do all you want. Just pay the mortgage. As long as you pay the bills and God's been gracious in that area. So what are the, what are the setback? What makes it, what, what makes it a hard day for you? What's a hard day? Well, I mean, any, I find that as humans, we can always find misery in any situation no matter how good, you know. Like it's so, it's so tempting to be discontented with your life. You know, if you're, if you're a cashier or, you know, a sales guy or a banker or whatever, you can always find something that makes you depressed about your job, you know. I mean, for us, it's the worst is the, not being able to find the joke, not being able to find the right, you know, angle the right thing. With comedy on the internet, it's especially difficult because you're not a stand-up comic where you can get that instant feedback. And it fuels you and, you know, you say something and you hear everybody laugh and you're like, like, good, I'm on the right track, you know. So when I do, when I do like a speech somewhere when I go give a presentation and read some Babylon B headlines, you get that. Like the crowd is, the crowd loves it, you know, and you can get that instant feedback. On the internet, it's difficult because you don't get, you don't get that instant feedback. You know, maybe you get some likes or comments or shares. And then, but that's so mechanical. It's just numbers. It doesn't show you the person who's texting it to their friend and the group texts that go around, everybody tells me about where they're sharing Babylon B articles. Exactly what happens here. You don't see the pastors on Sunday who show a Babylon B headline at their congregation. Like you don't get all that feedback. All you see is that number. So when there's things like suppression on Facebook or suppression on Twitter or whatever, you know, you're not getting that feedback. You're like, oh, we're not getting the shares we want. I can make you go, we're really not funny. You know, so for six years, I've been saying, I'm not funny. I don't have any more jokes. And then the next day, you always, you always are hit with something to. So like, like I've heard that comedians go through, certainly pro athletes go through a slump. Sure. How, how would you get out of a slump? Yeah, that's true. I mean, I think like I was talking about Chesterton earlier with a chasing your hat thing. That's something that we constantly quote around the office. You know, if there's a day where there's no jokes coming together or this, you know, we say, well, it's just a chasing your hat day. We're just, we can be the idiots today. And we don't always have to be the ones who are clever. And so I think we have to keep that in mind. And I have to just constantly slap myself and remind you. Yeah. You know, not literally, but I have to constantly slap myself and remind myself. Like you tell jokes on the internet for a living. You got it easy. You know, it's, it's the Israelites in the desert, you know, when they get, they get, they get rescued from Pharaoh. And then it's like, oh, we should have gone back there. You know, I'm like, I always have to remember like, oh, well, you were sitting at a sales job working 80 hours of a cat in your life, you know, four or five years ago. So you have to try to be content in that. Remember, keep things in perspective. I mean, even where we are in human history, just that, you know, we wrote a Babylon B headline once that was like, you know, I'm bored. It says kid who has more things than royalty had 100 years ago. You know, and there's a kid sitting there with his always video game consoles. You know, and, but that's me too. Like I sit there and go, oh, you know, life is hard. And I'm like, well, you know, 100 years ago, I would have been farming my own food. Right. It's so, it's so hard to, or it's so easy to forget like where we are in human history and how content that should make us, you know. Do you see funny and just things naturally though? I mean, like you guys have to sit down in an office, so to speak and put things together. But are you not just, because it's such a part of who we are as created in the image of God that aren't you just kind of always on the funny note, so to speak? Not being funny, because that could be a noxious. But what I'm saying is like you just saw that, you know, yesterday I saw a squirrel fall out of a tree. I thought that was incredibly hilarious. Especially when the squirrel was okay, then it was even more funny. But, you know, those kinds of things, are you just, do you see things? Because 100 people can look at something. But you look at the exact same thing I would assume. And you see it just a little different. Well, my wife's constantly having to hit the back of my head because I'm writing headlines in church, you know. Like I'm watching what's happening and writing it right and stuff. That is great. We're going to a Calvary Java right now, so there's a ton of content. Great content. Yeah. At a Calvary. A lot of stuff to make fun of. Yeah, so you have, but I think that's a good habit to cultivate for anybody. Not for writing during church, but for finding a year or a day. Finding a year or a day. Taking notes. That's what it is, yeah. Of course you are. In my own way. That's right. Did you see your kids? Yeah. Yeah, three boys. Ages? Yeah, they're 13, 11, and oh, actually, 12, 1 just turned 12, 13, 12, and 6. What the older ones anyway? What becomes of their friends when they say, are they find out my dad writes for the Babylon? Yeah. Yeah, my eldest is very embarrassed because he's a shy kid. Oh. I go to pick him up at the junior high and all his friends know the Babylon B, and they're like, I watched your show today. I watched your podcast, you know. So they go to a Christian school, so they're all in on it. My middle son more likes it. It's his claim to fame. So there you go. Yeah. Isn't that something? Yeah. That's awesome. So you personally, what's been your faith journey with Jesus? How did this happen to you? Where did that all begin? Yeah. I grew up in a Christian home up here at PFB, you know, in Purpose Church now, for the first 18 years I went there in my life. And then I got baptized in my freshman year of high school there. And that was kind of the moment that I had grown up in the church. And it's so easy in the church to find, to kind of become that self-righteous guy who's, you know, I was the guy with all the Oana trophies and very proud of myself, you know. And I think that was when I realized, you know, I don't know, a lot of people, a lot of people that come to faith later in life have to repent of all the world in this and move to the church. I felt like in a lot of ways I had to repent from the idols in the church, you know, to find Christ there, you know. And so that was, that was kind of the journey where I came to know the Lord. And then, and then from there was just growth and Bible study. I had a great youth pastor who taught the word of God very strongly from the pulpit and the youth in the youth center there. And so I really learned to love the Bible. And take it seriously in a, like, that was the first time I had heard, like, real hardcore, like, through the books of the Bible, expositional preaching. Being able to hear, like, like, we're going to preach to the book of Galatians was like this, wow, this is incredible. You know, and I got to hear that for the first time. So that, you know, and then I bounced around at various different churches. Like I said, that gives a lot of material for the Babylon be, you know, doing different church plants and different denominations through the years and it gets you a lot of material. It's incredible. It's so good. This is one reporter's opinion is that as I look at what you put out being a pastor in the word, I'm always encouraged by how, how solid you guys are in your humor. And I don't mean solid, like, not funny. I mean, solid, funny, where what you're talking about is a biblical issue or truth that has its answer. And, and we the believers can tell when we're reading it or seeing it. This guy knows what he's talking about. These guys know. And, you know, I've never gone on the Babylon be to, you know, Wikipedia you guys are to see what your statement of faith is if it's out there. It comes across. It's clear. God's using it. It's remarkable. We love it. In the closing moments, what do you see the future of the Babylon be becoming? Absolutely. Yeah, we, we've had a lot of irons in the fire for a lot of years. You know, it's a, it's a small but growing company where we're in this kind of act to, if you will, of the company growth phase now where it's like you're, you're moving from, you know, a couple guys in a garage to, you know, now we have people that are working on, I mean, you wouldn't believe the Babylon be, you know, if I told you that two or three years ago, I was the only employee, you know, and we were, we were still, you know, we had other writers that were contributing part time or throwing and headlines or whatever, but, but if they're on a given day, we might have published eight articles and I might have pitched written and photoshopped every single one, you know, like that was, and so now we're kind of getting to a more sustainable level where we have photoshoppers that I can go to, we have people that are writing articles that I can go to, I have a great managing editor that can run some of the day today. So that's kind of the, that's kind of the trajectory is like we're building this out and we've looked at a lot of things like film projects and TV projects, our video content on YouTube has been taken off, being able to turn a lot of the Babylon be style headlines into a, into a full on sketch, you know, three or four minutes of really building out that joke, it's been a lot of fun. We're looking at what it would mean to do something like Saturday night at night live from the perspective of the Babylon be incredible, you know, ways that we can impact culture, we say that the Babylon be speaks truth to a culture that no longer believes in truth and we're just looking for ways to do that different formats, how do we go where the culture is and bring that message in a way that humor first and then that message comes and punches people right afterwards. Wow, what you just said is a modern day version of the whole concept of a parable, a parable parabolic teaching is ancient and it is something that theologians understand that it's God that invented parabolic teaching, when we read about the parables in the Bible, there's, they're not only localized to Jesus, there's parables in the Old Testament, but when Jesus taught a parable, that's what we see often recorded. What we don't realize is that in the Jewish way of preaching and teaching, the teacher had been teaching for an hour or two, in this case, Rabbi teacher Jesus, and when he delivers the parable, it is taking the message that he just gave you and they put a bow on it with a memorable, colorful description and so parabolic is parable alongside cast to cast truth alongside your head. And that's exactly what you guys are doing. You were wrapping up truth to be dropped alongside a head that wouldn't normally even consider it because it's that satire funny, it's extremely effective obviously, which is why you guys are being so attacked because that's evidence of your effectiveness. And yet at the same time, we don't want you guys to ever get, right? So serious about your success, we want you guys to keep doing what you're doing. You guys are an incredible form of release for us and we love it and the world loves it. One of the things that Babylon B's been doing a lot of is books. We have the Sacred Texts of the Babylon B, which is our best of collection that's awesome and beautiful and it looks like a giant Bible on your show. We have a, we have the Babylon B guide to wokeness where we destroy wokeness and in all of its forms, we have how to be a perfect Christian, where we mock culture, church culture. And then me and the Immanaging Editor of the Babylon B Joel Berry just have had a novel that's coming out on June 7th, I don't know when this airs, but it's called the postmodern pilgrims progress. And we take John Bunyan's classic pilgrims progress, put a sci-fi and a humor twist into it. And we have kind of a guy who's a little bit of an agnostic doesn't really know what's going on and he kind of goes through this journey where he meets God through these encounters of woke people and you know people in the charlatans in the church and this and that. So we took that structure that Bunyan did so well of, you know, Mr. Worldly Wise Man and all these characters that we all encounter and you'll read the book and look at the people and go, I know that guy at church or I know that guy in the world. So that's been a lot of fun and the response has been great from people who have taken a look so far. Fantastic. So sometime around June 7th, is the release? Is the release going to be available Amazon everywhere? Amazon and non-woke places as well. Publisher is Salem Books. Fantastic. Well listen Kyle, keep it up, don't stop, we love you guys and we so appreciate you taking the time to be with us. And we actually wanted you to be here just so that we could get near closer to the Babylon B. So thank you brother. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. God bless you. Our pleasure. This Jack Kibb's podcast as well as all the broadcast out reach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibb.com to learn more and stay connected.