Joe Rogan & Anthony Cumia - The Bizarre and Hilarious Real Origin of The Proud Boys

Well, listen, we were talking about this last time. It was with you, the proud boys started off as a goof and then became like what the, I mean, they won't let him in Australia now. Have you seen that? No, it's, it's gotten insane. Yeah. Like Gavin is considered a, like a war criminal at this point. Uh, I know Gavin very well. He used to be on compound media, my, my network. Um, and that's where the whole thing started. Explain how it all started. Explain how it all started because people don't know. It's, it's amazing when you think about it because it makes you question everything. Like how did, how did a Nazi Germany start? Was that a joke? Was that like Stalinism and everything in Russia? Gavin had a show very outrageous. Gavin is one of these, just a funny, outrageous guy. His whole career has been based on satire and parody and all that. He's very much a provocateur. Right. Provocateur. Absolutely. Yeah. Loves shaking people out. It's hard to find out where he really, how he really feels and when he's playing games. Right. It's very blurry. Absolutely. So we have, uh, we had this employee, uh, Ben Ratner little kid. We, we actually hired him just because his name was Ratner and we wanted to call him rat, like in fast times, Hey, red, why don't you turn on the camera? Uh, so it was, it was great. Uh, he rat never talked about girls. It's like this really Jewish, really red hair, kind of gangly, you know, kid. And, uh, he, he liked going to Broadway shows and things. And we always questioned his sexuality and whatnot. And Gavin really started hitting on him going, what are you doing? Like get laid a kid your age should be out there. You're just fucking plowing through pussy. And he's like, Oh, I'm like, you know, waiting for the right girl and everything. So Gavin would continuously goof on him. So he would always go to Broadway plays. So Gavin started getting, uh, music from musicals and playing it to him like, Hey, look at this, you pussy. You know, is this what you like? Uh, and one of them was proud of your boy. It's a Broadway, a song from a musical, uh, a Disney musical, I believe. And it's, you know, Oh, proud of your boy. It's one of those big grandiose Broadway pieces of shit. I can't stand that stuff, man. I hate it. Oh, it is. It's terrible. Uh, so he goofed on about that and then said, we ought to make a club called the proud boys and that way you can learn how to be a man. And you know, you, you'll get chicks and tattoos and, you know, drink beer and hang out with guys as a joke. It was like this parody of a men's club. And so over the top that it was like, I think part of the way to get beaten into this gang, this club was that you had to recite five breakfast cereals while the other members punched you and they would keep punching you until you spit out. So ludicrous, so ridiculous, such a parody. Uh, and slowly this fucking thing mutated into something. It got more members. Uh, they started wearing, um, what are those shirts that with the yellow co, piping on the collar and stuff. It's a specific shirt that became the uniform peri-ellis peri-ellis shirts, a specific black shirt with gold piping and, uh, on the collar and the, uh, the sleeves, and that became like the uniform. And because it was presented as a chauvinistic club, like, like girls are allowed, minorities are allowed. It doesn't matter who we are, but in essence, it is a guy thing. And we will talk shit about girls and we're going to drink and get laid. And it was just a men thing. So they started getting together at bars, you know, in the area in Manhattan. And how was this organized? This is organized through his compound media show? Through the compound media show and his own Twitter account and, and Facebook, which he subsequently lost. He's persona non grata on social media, but that's how it started. And it never was supposed to go any further than that. Gavin himself didn't really take it any further than that. It's just, let's get together every so often. We have a good time. We drink, laugh, everything like that. Well, then this whole thing with, uh, politics got involved because Antifa, which is anti-fascist started, uh, uh, coming into conservatives that wanted to speak. So Gavin was a conservative is a conservative. He'd get a speaking engagements at schools, uh, NYU or, um, any, any, uh, numerous places around New York city and Antifa would show up to protest him and try to shut down the event. So then the proud boys would go and protect Gavin. So he wouldn't get harmed doing these, uh, speaking engagements. Uh, and that, so then it turned into this because they're fighting with Antifa. They must be the far the fascist, the Nazis. Um, and once that gets out there, there's no pulling it back. You could try to explain how you're not a Nazi till you're blue in the fucking face, it ain't going away. And especially cause it's a good story. The press likes it. It's this good versus evil thing. They present Antifa like their protest. They always call them and the protesters were beaten. They're fucking violent, a violent group of people that are there to, to hit people they don't agree with and silence people that want to speak. And that's exactly what happened with Gavin and, and Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos, uh, uh, Ben Shapiro. A lot of these conservative people can't go to these venues and speak. They get shut down because of a violent group of people called Antifa. So proud boys were kind of the answer to that. So Gavin can go around and actually, uh, speak. Well, when that happened, more people, uh, came on board because they kind of liked to beat people up. Uh, when you have a gang, a group of people and one of their missions is now to beat up people you don't agree with politically. When there was tears, there was tears to the membership. Like the highest tier was you fought for the cause. Right. Right. To actually get into fist fight. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Gavin thought was like, I've talked to Gavin. I like Gavin. I've had Gavin on the podcast and the last time I had him on, I didn't know what this whole thing was. And so he was explaining the proud boys and he was talking to me about, we're going to punch them. We're going to punch people. Yeah. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And I was like, did you don't, you can't just punch people. Like they, they punch back and then you get, they get mad that you punched them and then they shoot you when you get out of your car. Right. Right. This is this escalates people don't just take it. Well, it was never supposed to be an offensive punching. Uh, when, when I would speak to Gavin and every example I would see it was an answer to violence, they, they would have violence perpetrated on them. The problem is you can take it out of context and all people needed to say is he's calling for violence. That's it. And that's what they've said about Gavin over and over again, taking things out of context and use it as an example. The other problem being that the anti-fist people are a lot of skinny dudes and chicks with masks on and they are not really that adept at fighting. There's a horrible video of this one anti-fic guy tries to hit someone with, it looks like some kind of a stick or a pipe. Yeah. And the guy catches it and fucking blasts him on the chin and fucking put him down. And his head bounces off the concrete unconscious, which is how a lot of people die. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's how people die in fights. Like, oh, he killed him with his bare hands. Yeah. He hit his fucking head on. Yeah. He hit his head on the concrete. You got hit by the world. It's literally the world. Right. Right. Gravity. It's not going to budge. Gravity has punched you in the back of the head. Yeah. So yes. These people have this idea that they're going to go places. They're going to shut everybody down. And because they're in a group, they're going to scream and yell and hit people with bike locks and all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. The weird thing is that that's from the left. That was never from the left before. When I was a kid, I grew up when I was from age seven, 11 during the Vietnam war. Yeah. I lived in San Francisco and I was around the real hippies. And I remember being a little kid, I remember that. In a time like there were flower children. I mean, they were the, right. The hippies and the lefties were no, were love and peace and no violence. And everyone was doing acid. Okay. And now they're all on Adderall and they're hitting people with bike locks. It was, yeah. It's a different thing. There was a time where the liberals, the hippies, the, you know, they, they were the ones that when there would be a demonstration and the national guard would show up, they'd be putting flowers in the barrels of the guns. There are famous pictures of that. And then Kent State was a bunch of hippies, literally getting shot by the national guard, the national guard. Yeah. That has completely flipped around. It's the weirdest thing. And I don't know how it got distinguished where Proud Boys became this evil group of people and, and Antifa is the good group of people. Now I understand that Proud Boy, Proud Boys were infiltrated by white nationalists, yes, Nazi, white supremacists, whatever it is. But those were constantly being disavowed by Gavin. Gavin never wanted any of that happening. But is there a way, how do you get in though? Here's the question. Because this is my, you saw my last comedy special. Uh-huh. This is my criticism about vegans. It's not that there's anything wrong with being a vegan. Right. That when you have a group where anybody can join, you're going to get a certain amount of fucking idiots. Right. If you have a million people, for sure you have a hundred thousand fucking idiots. Yes. There's no getting around that. Yeah. So if you have a group where anybody can join and you have a million people in that group, you're going to have a hundred thousand fucking idiots. Fucking idiots. And those people are going to define your group. The worst behavior in that group is where people are going to call to as an example. That's it. I think this is also a symptom of the social media era today, especially with Twitter, because you can't express yourself and explain things 140 or 280 characters, it just takes too much time. So they can say, Oh, proud boys, racist, scumbag, Nazi, Gavin, and they're always racist, scumbag Nazi, and all of a sudden that's the narrative and everybody keeps pushing it and that's the videos of people punching little skinny people. Oh, look at these people. They beat up the Antifa, these fucking assholes and Gavin's an asshole. Yeah, that's, that's what it comes down to. I've seen it presented. Uh, well you ask how it starts and how it grows and how you become a member by buying a fucking shirt, by buying a Perry Ellis shirt and opening a chapter. Dude, there are chapters worldwide. You see it. It's like, here's the, the proud boys Australia. Here's the proud boys, England, proud boys, fucking Japan. Like it's everywhere and it never was supposed to get to that point. And regardless of how these people act, it now reflects on Gavin, even though he wanted to hang out in a bar with a few people, do his public speaking without being hassled and that's it. And, and I see the way the media manipulates things. I've been party to it myself and I've seen Gavin presented in photos where you look and go, holy fuck, it's Hitler. Like, like they get him. There's one picture of Gavin that I was petrified by. He's got his arms folded. He's got a scowl on his face, that hair, you know, the short on the side, long on the top, and he's looking like, like he's angry. And I'm like that, that's not the guy that him and his wife, who's American Indian, by the way, his wife's American Indian. He's got beautiful kids that come over my house and use the pool and we hang out in barbecue. I'm like, that's not that guy. Yeah. No one knows that guy from the paper. They're getting this impression. He's a really nice guy. He's, he's, uh, generous, just a really cool guy to hang out with. And what you see them do in the media is just crazy, especially when you know he didn't invent some goddamn Nazi group. He was just trying to have a little outrageous fun and it ran from him. It got away from him. The, the origin of it though, the way you're describing it, that is fucking fantastic. Isn't that nuts to think that that is what presented it. I mean that, that emerged. It's a cool out of that. We, we, we fuck with rat all the time because we go, can you believe the inspiration for the proud boys is this little Jewish kid? Where is that guy? Is there a photo of online? Oh, I'm sure there is. Yeah. Yeah. Rat rat, compound media rat. You'll probably find him. Um, it's how much is this weird you out though, that compound media was the source of all this. It is weird. Like, and it's one of those things you worry about. Like, like, I don't want to then be tied because I know how it works. I love Gavin, but I don't want to be tied to the proud boys at this point. You know, I got my own fucking problems through history. I don't need any more piled on me. But what was that thing that I'd sent you that here? There he is. There he is. That's a rat. I guess that was Halloween. I look at you. What's a, I was wearing that's suit. That was, I was the mayor from Jaws mayor Vaughn. I was for Halloween. It's awesome. That's the guy that started the proud. He started the proud boys. That looks like a 1938 propaganda poster. A little cutie. It's like he's in a Norman Rockwell painting. That's it. He should be there with like a, like a guy who's handing him an apple pie. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's the face of the new Nazi movement. I think that there's a lot of mistakes were made, you know, but Gavin's, Gavin's made some mistakes. Like his, his whole thing of, of not of blurring the lines between parody and honesty, he thinks it's fun. It's very punk rock. Yes. He came out last time he's on the podcast, which was a few years back. He came on dressed like Michael Douglas from falling down. He had a briefcase. He brought the suit, like the short sleeve shirt. He dresses like that all the time now. Like he goes around. I just, I just did a Skype interview with him, uh, yesterday, two days ago, uh, from the hotel room and he, yeah, he's got the pocket protector and the pens and the glasses. Yeah. Like falling down. He thinks it's funny. Well, people need to understand, and this is true. He is the Godfather of the hipsters. Yeah. He putting Godfather of hipsters in Google. He comes up. Yeah. All of that wardrobe that guys are wearing that they look like they're wearing old timey suits with the skinny ties. Yeah. That's Gavin McGinnis. Yeah. Literally started that fashion trend in Williamsburg. Yeah. And they, it took off from there. That the hipster dress, the way people would dress with those weird mustaches and all that shit that literally came out of Gavin. Gavin, which is amazing. The motherfucker is, he is like a, yeah. Well, there's something like magnetic about the guy. He is what a cult leader is. Like he could just start a cult, which in essence by accident, he did between the hipsters and then this, he's one of those guys like, like Gavin, why don't you start, why didn't you start a cult where you get to fuck the people's wives like that kind of cult? Why, why do you go with? Well, he also did some really good interviews online where he would trick these leftists into sitting down with him in interviews and then along the way, they were having this conversation. It would be exposed that he didn't agree with them at all. And they were trapped. Like this hardcore feminist got trapped with them and a couple other people got trapped in this room with him. Yeah. And they, they realize like halfway, like some of the line of questioning and the way he's approaching things like, Oh my God, like he's an interesting guy. He's very interesting. And outside of this Proud Boys thing, if you never, never invented that, you never did any of that, he would be doing great. Yeah. Although he had a problem with one of, one of his own companies that he made after vice, they, they bought him out of vice because, uh, Shane turned more liberal and, and it wasn't really, they weren't really meshing anymore over their advice. So they kind of just bought out, uh, Gavin, he, he got a lot of money and decided to do his own thing. He, uh, had an advertising firm, I guess it was. Yeah. Uh, and then he got the boot from that for making, uh, transgender comments. Well, he was talking about transgender people have mental health issues. He was bringing up all these, here's the problem. He was, he was saying some things that are correct. Yeah. This is interspersed with again, parody and sarcasm. But in his mind, this was like, just, this is something you can talk about where it was in the public side, particularly during the Caitlyn Jenner whole thing. People had decided that transgender was amazing. It's amazing. It's beautiful. She's incredible. And he was saying, no, these are people that are mentally ill. And there's, and, uh, there's a website that he was pointing to, I think it's called transgender regrets or something like that, where they have all these stories of all these men who turn into women and then turn back to men again. Now they don't have dicks. Oh, Jesus. And they have to take testosterone injections and they hate their life. And there's some of them who did it when they were in their sixties and now they're in their seventies and trying to be a man again. And, and that gender dysphoria was thought to be a mental health issue. Like anorexia, like a lot, a lot of other, there's, there's body dysphoria. I mean, people have weird, um, you know, uh, bodybuilders get it. They, they, they never think they're big enough. Right. Yeah. People have like weird perceptions of their physical presence and their being and some, uh, I had a psychologist, Dr. Debra. So who was discussing late onset gender dysphoria in autistic girls that autistic teenage girls, they don't feel like they fit in and people can convince them that they're actually a man. And so a lot of them start taking hormones and, and, and going through transition and then have massive regrets. And then unfortunately for women, when, especially when you're a teenager and you're going through puberty and you take hormones, you literally start developing male features, your face gets harder and thicker and wider. Your shoulders get bigger. Like the whole deal, your hands, your click grows the size of a thumb. So you, you make these irreversible changes or unless, you know, so you just described Jim Norton's dream girl. Yeah.