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The LNBE Podcast
Mike Rispoli presents: The LNBE Podcast—"Literally Nothing, But Everything."
It’s a mix of personal stories, life lessons, and hot takes, all told like you're on the phone with your most unfiltered friend.
No experts. No advice. Just vibes, opinions, and faith-based curiosity.
The LNBE Podcast
Episode 54 - Nothing but Online Upheaval and Fan Frenzy
What happens when a TikTok ban throws your daily entertainment routine into chaos? I recount my rollercoaster of emotions during the app's sudden shutdown and unexpected return. It was like Y2K all over again, sparking panic and debate over free speech, while I clung to my beloved distraction during unemployment. As whispers swirl about Mr. Beast's potential involvement with TikTok's future, we explore the chaotic political landscape, drawing startling parallels to the COVID vaccine rollout.
Switching gears, we venture into the world of football, leveraging the star power of Taylor Swift's influence.
If you would like to share your opinion, send an email to lnbemedia@gmail.com and don't forget to follow me on Instagram and TikTok @thelnbepodcast.
all right, what's going on? Everybody, welcome back. Thank you for tuning into this episode of the lnbe podcast, where lnbe stands for literally nothing but everything. I'm mike raspoli, and did you guys all make it? Did you survive through the dreaded tiktok ban? Dude?
Speaker 1:The amount of people who went fucking ape shit over that. It almost seemed like it was the next y2k, like people were fucking losing their minds. I gotta be honest, I was pissed about it. But I don't think I was pissed about it in the same way that a lot of other people were pissed about it, everyone on social media, especially on tiktok for that quote-unquote last day because it ended up just coming back the next day. But everybody was just like, how could they take this away from us? It goes against our first amendment and our freedom of speech and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:But for me just to tell you how selfish of a person I am I wasn't thinking about it for the greater good of the people and what it would mean if they took it away from us. I was thinking about it more in the sense of like, what the hell am I going to do with my time now? How is this going to affect me? Fuck everybody else They'll survive. I knew that my time spent in the bathroom was going to significantly decrease, but other than that, I was just like what the hell is going to be my life and for me, that's where the panic set in, because I spend so much time on that app. It is ridiculous. I mean I'm not talking like 15 minutes here or there, I'm talking like hours at a time, especially once I got unemployed, like I was watching TikTok, like it was freaking TV shows. It was nuts. I mean you could argue that it's just because, oh, you're just a typical millennial or Gen Z and you're addicted to your phone. And the reason why I put both of those generations in there is because I really don't know what generation I'm part of. I was born in 96. And every source that I look at, whenever I type in what generation does 96 fall into, it always comes back with Gen Z or it comes back with millennial, depending on what source you're looking at. But I guess that's kind of par for the course for this new age of people, because I just don't know how I identify.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, it was kind of crazy because I never actually closed out my app. So everybody, I think at like 10 30, they all got the notification saying that tiktok was gonna, um, go down at whatever time. But because I never closed out my app, I never got that notification. So I was like let me see how long I can ride this thing out for. And I actually was able to use it all the way up until around, I want to say like 1.15 am. And for a split second there I was like am I the only american that is able to use tiktok at this point? And I was hanging out with a buddy of mine and I was gonna post a video, kind of like a lone survivor type deal, where I'm like hey guys, um, it is now whatever time.
Speaker 1:It was panning to his phone to prove it and all I I was going to say is I think I might be the last American that still has access to TikTok. But then when I went to go post it, that was when I got the notification saying that this app was disabled and I wasn't able to do it. But it was kind of crazy because as I was doing the video I saw my screen kind of going in and out and I wasn't sure if it was my battery life or not. And right when I went to post it, that was when my app just went dark. So I actually got to see the app officially go dark. But then when I woke up the next day the app was back up and running like nothing had happened. So I was like, eh, no point in posting this now because I found it in my drafts. Posting this now because I found it in my drafts, which is kind of a crazy thing to think about, because I would have thought that if the app went totally dark that would have also meant that our data would have been white from it.
Speaker 1:But the fact that everything just went back to normal and all of our videos and stuff are there kind of proves the fact that there was some sort of tracking. And I keep seeing all these it guys now on tiktok saying how they feel that it was a migration, because it was no different than if you were to take your company's service provider or whatever and then just migrate it to a different server. That that's what it kind of felt like, because usually there's a maintenance window of however many hours and they usually try to do it over the course of a weekend, so that way it doesn't mess with anybody's work schedules or stuff like that and I gotta say that actually kind of tracks. And I saw something where mr beast if you don't know who he is he's this like huge YouTuber. He does all this stuff for charity. He's a multimillionaire. I mean, the dude's got money on money just from making YouTube videos. He actually, I think, posted a video saying that he was going to go meet with the CEO of TikTok and I think he's going to try and buy it TikTok and I think he's going to try and buy it. So I don't know what that means for the future of TikTok or what it means for who is now going to be hosting the platform, but I don't know. It's kind of some interesting stuff to think about.
Speaker 1:As for what my opinions of TikTok are, I kind of go back and forth. The tracking stuff does make me nervous and, like I said, with however much I've been on the app, the amount of tracking that's now on me is probably insane. So that does worry me with the data stuff. But I also think TikTok is a huge benefit I think I've said this before where all of these small companies or all of these people who are able to gain success through that app is just unparalleled to anything that we've seen. To put this in perspective, I was watching I think I was watching a football game and a Gillette commercial came on and this father-son duo, who I'd seen on TikTok, were in that commercial and I have no idea if it wasn't for the success that TikTok brought them that they would have ever even been on television, or even acting, for that matter. So I really don't know what to think about it. But I also am in agreement with other people on the app who just say that, given the amount of success that people can acquire in such a short amount of time, like people were able to get to that level of success and be a part of that 1% that everybody wants to have or wants to be a part of.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden now the government was like no, we're going to take this away. So it almost seemed to a certain point that they were only giving the general population just a small taste of what the limelight could look like. And then all of a sudden they just took it away, kind of like the rug was just swept under your feet. So I don't know. In that regard I'm also kind of against it, but I also am not sure what the deal is on, why or who decided that this app was such a negative aspect, because I remember in 2020, we heard all about the data leaks and stuff like that and then Trump came out and said, oh, this app is dangerous, it's propaganda, it's all this stuff.
Speaker 1:And then, all of a sudden, I thought the Democrats wanted to save it. I could be wrong, but I think I remember Nancy Pelosi coming out saying she doesn't want to ban it, she just wants to make it safer. So I don't think Democrats were truly against banning it, but Trump and the Republicans all sided on it. And then, all of a sudden, once Trump gets on there, he realized the impact and the power that this app in particular had, and all of a sudden he just totally changed course and goes yeah, you know what? I think it's actually a benefit. I think I want to save it.
Speaker 1:And it kind of became this wishy-washy thing where then you had Republicans, or at least I don't even know if Rand Paul is a Republican. I think he labels himself as a libertarian. He said that it was a detriment to free speech and First Amendment rights and all that stuff. So you kind of had this kind of switch where Republicans hated it, democrats kind of wanted it, and then Republicans wanted it and now Democrats don't want it. I have no idea. It's all very confusing, but at the end of the day, somehow they both decided that this was a bad app. Meanwhile, none of them can agree on what a woman is or on what basic facts are, so mind blown that this was the one stupid thing that they could all agree on.
Speaker 1:It kind of reminded me of the whole COVID mandate. Trump pushed out the COVID vaccine, saying that they were safe. Democrats were like, oh no, it's way too soon, nobody should take them. Then Biden gets in office. And they were all like oh no, it's safe, we're going to push these. They were all getting the vaccine on TV and all this stuff. And Trump turned his own script and was like oh, I don't trust the vaccines either. Dude, I don't fucking know.
Speaker 1:And I know that for a little bit I was like trying to go political, but that's also just because my audience is small and I don't know what you guys like and nobody writes in, except for a couple of you. Thank you for that, by the way, but I don't know. Couple of you. Thank you for that, by the way, um, but I don't know, man, it's. It's all just wishy-washy, it's all just populism, it's all bullshit. At the end of the day, you don't have to look at red or blue ties, you got to just look at green, because, at the end of the day, that really is what all these people are looking at. They're not looking for the betterment of people, they're looking for the betterment of themselves and they're just using the betterment of people as a way to excuse the fact of how they're putting money into their own pockets.
Speaker 1:I, I'm just over it, I really am, and I saw a little bit of the inauguration just because, as much as I want to say, I want to pull away from it some things you just can't right. When I saw elon just doing the hitler salute, I was out. I was like holy shit, this cannot be fucking real. He really did that. Oh, my god, oh, it is gonna be a fun four years, but all right, enough of that. What else have you guys been up to? You know what? Let's talk a little football here, because, honestly, besides TikTok, that's all I really have been watching right now.
Speaker 1:And I got to say, if anybody caught that commanders game, I was actually upset. I really wanted Detroit to win. I mean, I know Detroit had a lot of injuries and they were dealing with a lot of stuff and the fact that they even made it this far I was kind of shocked. I thought going into the season they were going to be one of my Super Bowl favorites, but then, as the year went on, I was just like I don't really know. Washington has really surprised me. I don't know if Washington will be able to beat the Eagles though, because Jaden Daniels is still a rookie. I don't know how he's going to take to that spotlight in that big game, but he has played very well as of late. So I'm excited for that game.
Speaker 1:But I got to say, if I'm an Eagles fan, I don't know how excited I would be for my chances, because the Rams were down two scores with five minutes left in the fourth quarter and they almost won scores with five minutes left in the fourth quarter and they almost won. I mean there was a no call pass interference that you could argue on the last pass of the game that Stafford made, and arguably, if he makes that throw, who knows what the next play could have been, but they could have come back to win the game. The Eagles defense they kind of let up. I don't know if they were just exhausted or if they were just playing uh, prevent defense the rest of the game. And if you play prevent defense, that's just a way of losing games. I don't care what anybody says, um, because five yards here, five yards there, you're gonna get first downs. Like I'm playing the prevent. To watch out for the long ball is not a way to close out games. Man coverage all the way down. You don't play zone because you don't want to give up the soft spot. I think you still play tight coverage because you don't want to give the guy with the ball an opportunity, at least in my opinion. But if I'm an Eagles fan I don't look at that game like, oh, that was a win. I'm actually kind of worried because Jalen Hurts is not 100%. They also did lose their top corner, so you could argue that maybe that's also probably why the Rams were able to drive down the field. So I really don't know how you guys would feel playing Washington, who's been hot lately. Know how you guys would feel playing Washington, who's been hot lately, but again. It just comes down to the fact that you got a rookie quarterback playing for the NFC championship game against a top-ranked defense. I don't know. I feel like it could kind of go either way, but when it came to the Ravens-Bills games, I gotta say nobody is better beating the Ravens than themselves. I mean, mark Andrews had that fumble. He had that drop, two point conversion. Lamar had that interception. He also had a fumble like I don't know. I'm wondering if Lamar is going to be the next Aaron Rodgers, where he's got all these great regular season statistics. He's always going to get an MVP but he just can't perform in the playoffs. I don't know what to say about that, just based on what I've seen as of recent, because Lamar is a crazy talent but he just doesn't have the postseason success that I think everybody thinks he should have. So that's kind of interesting. But I will say, if the Bills do not beat the Chiefs next week, then I don't care who the Chiefs are playing. The Chiefs are going to friggin win the Super Bowl, and you saw it when they were playing Houston.
Speaker 1:The amount of shit that I saw the Chiefs get called for. I mean one of the first plays of the game, jawan Taylor finally gets called for false starting. So I was initially watching just like, oh, the refs are going to finally start calling a fair game. But then what do they do? Like the next play or within the next couple plays, they get a roughing the passer call on a third and three and it wasn't roughing. The defender was within a step of him throwing that ball and he hit him in the chest. There was no head-to-head contact, so that was kind of bullshit. And then later on in the game again there was another roughing the passer call that I honestly thought could have been 50-50 when I first saw it, because Mahomes was sliding and the defender kind of came out and hit him, but he actually the defender didn't even hit him, he hit his own player. So I don't know how you could call that roughing the passer or run sportsmanlike conduct or whatever. They ended up calling it on the field because mahomes didn't even get hit.
Speaker 1:But mahomes always does this thing that just truly pisses me off, where right before he's about to slide or right before he's about to step out of bounds, he always kind of lets up and he kind of starts standing. I don't know if it's like he just stops running to try and evade a defender or something, but I'm thinking he does it. So this way, when he stops or something, whatever it is, the defender will hit him automatically and he's hoping to get that call. And nine out of ten times he will get that call, regardless of whether he's inbounds or out of bounds, because nobody's allowed to touch pussy boy Patrick, the fucking golden child of the NFL. So if I'm a defender, knowing I'm gonna get that call, what I would do is I would just take his head off. I would just be like yo, I'm gonna get the call anyway, but I'm gonna try and force you to stop doing this shit. So I'm going to make it hurt. And yes, I understand, the stars get the calls. Like that is always what the NFL has been about, and even as a Patriots fan I know I'm sounding hypocritical, I know I've said this on the podcast before that I'm bitching all about the same stuff that the Chiefs are getting that the Patriots got in that fantastic run that they had where none of the calls would go for the other team. Brady got all the calls X, y, z but I have never seen it to this extent and I will continuously bitch about it.
Speaker 1:Because how about this? How about when Steve Spagnuolo bitched and screamed at the refs to call a timeout and they got the timeout? That's actually a penalty. Only the head coach and the players are allowed to call timeouts. You can't have a defensive coordinator calling a timeout. Or how about when Ladarius Need took his helmet off in the end zone? I remember when DJ Moore did that against that crazy throw that I think Fields had to win the game against the Panthers either a year or two ago. Dj Moore takes his helmet off and he gets like a unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and it got enforced. But when Ladarius Snead does it, the refs go over to him and says oh hey, maybe put your helmet back on. We don't want to call this Like give me a fucking break. It has never been this blatant. At least it wasn't when the Patriots were playing. No, what did everybody have to do with the Patriots? Oh, they're cheating, making a bullshit arguments or bullshit stories as to why the Patriots were playing so well.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, you look at videos of Belichick's coaching. There's a video on tiktok, of all places. I know that I saw where um, what's his nuts? One of the mccourty brothers was talking and he said hey, in this stadium the wind goes from xyz to xyz, so when it's at a certain point the ball is just going to stop. So when you get to this point, just always make sure that you're looking back. So we ended up doing it in a game I think it was against the Jets and he ended up getting an interception because the ball just ended up dropping and it went right into his chest.
Speaker 1:Like, don't tell me that the Patriots had the cheat, because Belichick's football knowledge and football mind that dude was like a fucking boy scout. Just always be prepared. They had to come up with the conspiracy that the Patriots were cheating because that was the only way that they were going to get this team to stop winning so much Going all the way up to the Supreme Court for a bullshit case that ended up just getting thrown out because it was a waste of everybody's time. Don't tell me that the Chiefs are the next Patriots either for that reason. I mean, if you can't stop a team without the refs and you got to go to the Supreme Court, that proves to you how good that team actually was. So whoever ends up playing the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, they're ultimately also going to be playing against the refs. That's just the nature of what this team and what the NFL has become.
Speaker 1:And I'm probably not the only person to say this. But I also think because Taylor Swift is so involved in this team and that's why they were panning to her so much in the beginning until we all started complaining about it and at first, especially me I thought it was literally just because of her stardom and I'm thinking back like well, tom Brady was married to Giselle for how long like they never panned to her. It's literally just because Taylor Swift was able to bring in a brand new audience to the NFL because she started dating Travis Kelsey. So the NFL was probably like holy shit, if we don't show her after every other play, then all these Swifties who came to watch for her are no longer going to watch our programming. So we need to make sure that she's involved as much as possible, even though I gotta say Taylor Swift, I don't think she really asked for that type of acknowledgement. I think she literally just wanted to go to the game and support her boyfriend. But the NFL flipped the script and was like well, we also need to pander to our new audience and we got to give our new audience what they're looking for. And it would make perfect sense as to why the Chiefs are going to three-peat. For that reason because, at the end of the day, the NFL is a business and they want to generate the most revenue, and viewership ultimately adds up to more revenue. Like the NFL is not stupid. I mean, how many Swifties do you know that barely watched football before she became involved and now all of a sudden they are selling Chiefs jerseys like crazy, and it's because of Taylor Swift. Like the NFL knows that that is now their market. So of course, they're going to generate more success for the Chiefs because that's what they think more people want to see.
Speaker 1:Even though the general football fan, somebody like me and yeah, I know I saw success with the Patriots, but I also am not stupid and I know that the Patriots are going to suck for the next however many years. I mean I talked about it last week with Ethan Mike Rabel coming on is a great choice, but you don't know who they're going to draft and if those draft picks are going to pan out, it could take another five to ten years for the Patriots to become something. But for the general fan. I would rather see somebody else also win, and I know the argument is oh, you just hate success. No, I don't hate success.
Speaker 1:I loved it when the Patriots were winning. Granted, that's also my team, but I also would have loved it to see a team like the Bills or the Lions have some of the same success. I mean, if it was a Bills Lions Super Bowl, which was what I was genuinely hoping for this year, just due to the fact that both of those teams are just so desperate to win, it would have been the first Super Bowl where I would have been like is there a way where both teams can win, rather than saying is there a way that both teams can possibly lose? I mean, keep in mind, the Patriots also did lose three of their Super Bowls that they were in, and the Patriots also did go through a 10-year drought of not winning a Super Bowl, even with all those fantastic teams. So at what point does the same thing happen to the Chiefs? Are the Chiefs just always going to continuously win? Or at some point is the NFL also going to say hey, you know what, we need to knock this down a peg. That's all I'm wondering.
Speaker 1:But all right, right, I've talked about this enough and I'm sure that you guys are tired of hearing about it. Um, just fyi, I will not be posting an episode on friday. No, don't worry, I'm not doing a hiatus or anything like that. I actually am going to nashville on thursday and I'm coming back on sunday for my buddy's bachelor party trip, so there won't be an episode fr. But I will be back on for next Tuesday. Hopefully you guys don't miss me that much. But, with that said, I hope you all have a fantastic week. If you guys want to write in, you can email lnbemedia at gmailcom. And also, don't forget, you guys can check me out on my socials, on TikTok and Instagram, at the LNBE podcast. All right, everybody. At BLMVB Podcast. All right, everybody. No-transcript.
