Why did beverages get so damn aggressive?

Watch out, snowflakes. Macho drinks want to dominate your thirst. // Also: Israel, Elon, AI, Sam Harris, Kurt Vonnegut, and more.

Even our beverages have gone totally aggro.

Think about it: We used to have soft drinks, now we have hard seltzer. And then there’s Twisted Tea, Monster Energy, Nasty Beast, High Noon, and Black Rifle Coffee.

Black Rifle Coffee!? That’s right, even our coffee sounds like a school shooter now. That’s messed up. What’s next? “Hey, buddy. What ya drinking?” “It’s a Sandy Hook IPA!” Yikes.

The brand of water I keep seeing everywhere now: Liquid Death. That’s a strange name to give to a thing needed to, y’know, stay alive. Yet there it is, in a can (‘cuz plastic bottles are for p*ssies, I presume), with that vampire gangsta font, and a screaming skull that looks really cool if you’re the kinda guy who has a Celtic armband tattoo.

It’s almost as if the can is taunting you: “What, do you need hydration, you lil’ b1tch?” Um, yeah. Sorry? “Murder your thirst!” it screams. Actually, I’m just a little parched while taping a podcast. It’s not that serious. The can: “MURDER it!” Jeez, alright already.

I assume the target market for Liquid Death is dudes who feel like they need to seem alpha even when drinking H20. "Yes, I’m drinking water, but I'm no beta...I'm murdering my thirst. I’m dominating my joints. I'm like a serial killer but for transporting nutrients throughout my body." Whatever you say, BlueChew bro.

And then there’s Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Look, I’ll drink the lemonade…but I don’t need to know Mike was hard while making it. That’s clearly T.M.I. It just goes to show: When life gives you lemons, keep them the hell away from Mike. Dude is freakier than Diddy.

It makes me long for the days when the edgiest beverage around was Mountain Dew because it put snowboarders in its ads. In retrospect, we really shoulda appreciated the peacefulness of the 90’s, when drinks gave you a “refreshing citrus kick” instead of a “deadly Krav Maga punch to the solar plexus.”

At this point, I’m half-expecting to see a new brand of herbal tea called Hurt™️ (tagline: “I Hurt™️ myself today to see if I still feel.”) And I’m legit surprised Trump hasn’t come up with MAGA Water yet – it would, of course, be made from the tears of liberal cuckz. 100% pure snowflake.

And that’s when the inevitable backlash will come and we’ll get a bunch of progressive beverages to combat all this drink toxicity. At that point, the far left of the beverage aisle will bring you Woke-a Cola, Diversity-and-Inclusion Smoothies (because “all fruits matter”), Body Positivity Bublé (“we threw in some extra calories because you’re worth it, Queen!”), and, of course, Bud Light.

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Quickies

🎯 "Mental Health Awareness Month" is fun because it's kinda admitting that we spend the other 11 months living in denial.

🎯 AI is a new variation on "the bigger the lie..." AI = If you steal from so many people that no single one of 'em can identify as the victim, then you've gotten away with the greatest crime of all!

🎯 I've never wanted anything as much as the algorithm wants me to like Theo Von.

🎯 Why land acknowledgements are silly:

🎯 I'm so old I remember when "groomer" and "ped0" were actually legit scary terms as opposed to slurs you hurl at a person because they want to raise taxes on the wealthy.

🎯 I’m the king of losing umbrellas. I now like to think that I’m just gifting them to others around the city…like some kinda Johnny Umbrellaseed.

🎯 "I don't have a racist bone in my body." Um, ok. But who does? Is there some dude out there who's like, "I'm super progressive. Except for my left tibia. That bone thinks all lives matter so the rest of me is trying to defund it."

🎯 It's incredible how much I detest the things I find in the "For you" tab on X. It's like Elon's constantly yelling at me, "Here, you might hate THIS!"

🎯 "Do as I PR, not as he replies." 😬
-X CEO Linda Yaccarino

🎯 Small talk has really changed...
"Did you see that Dahmer documentary?" Of course! Crazy that he kept heads in his freezer.
"How about this weather?" Look, I barely know you and just like that you're gonna bring up the apocalypse!? Chill, man.

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Comedy

🃏 I’m headlining Zanies Chicago on 11/22 (the night before Thanksgiving). Tickets here.

🃏 I post clips of my standup (and more) at Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

🃏 Check out my other newsletter all about doing standup: Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian.

🃏 More 2023 shows coming up in NYC and Miami:

🃏 Check out my podcast:

🃏 And here I am guesting it up on a different pod:

"Matt Ruby is a NYC comic. Definitely one of my favorites on the scene right now! He's witty, smart, honest, cerebral & talking to him was a treat. He not only made me laugh - he made me think!"

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I Can’t Shut Up About Israel/Palestine

Check the archives for more nuanced views. These are just some quips from a Jew perspective. FYI, here’s a comment I left when someone accused me of supporting war crimes:

I am not a fan of war crimes and I don’t know that Israel’s strategy is a wise one. The deaths in Gaza are tragic and heartbreaking. I also don’t know how else Israel can eliminate Hamas and I understand their feeling this is an imperative after what Hamas has done. It’s all very complicated and sad and I’ve been immersed in it for my entire life (my father is Israeli) so if you think there’s something I haven’t considered about all this, I’d be curious to hear it.

OK? OK…

🫓 Tell these college kids that Hamas doesn't respect pronouns. That oughta do it.

🫓 How's it going for Jews? Well, I saw a Hamas-shoots-dog-at-kibbutz video and my first thought was, "Spread this one instead of them killing Jews. For a lot of people, this will be the thing that's over the line."

🫓 Gonna start needing flavors to describe the different kinds of anti-semitism. Is it a Charlottesville "Soros-backed" Jew hate? A Wesleyan intersectionality Jew hate? Or a scoop of each with a drizzle of Jihad on top?

🫓 I get why people are confused about Jews being indigenous to Israel. It's not like there's some book that's been around forever and documents the entire Jewish history there.

🫓 Synagogues in the USA have police officers stationed outside their doors while mosques in the USA have police officers working undercover inside their doors. See, we're not so different after all: We're both getting cops paid.

🫓 In a way, it's good that Osama Bin Laden letter went viral. It revealed the logical end game of unworldly young people who don't realize how lucky they are to live in America and how their philosophy is bound to lead to shooting themselves in the feet.

🫓 One of the worst things Hamas has done is make Bari Weiss seem reasonable.

🫓 The best argument for diversity is every group chat for an ethnic group I've ever seen.

🫓 I'm no expert on conflict resolution, but seems like a good way to get Israelis onboard with a ceasefire would be to stop shooting rockets at them.

🫓 The most gentile thing you can do is like scary movies. No Jew is ever like, "I need something to make me feel anxious and worried about what's around the corner." We come from a long line of jump cuts and Wilhelm screams.

🫓 I get pushback on my Middle East views in this pod. Hear me defend myself…

🫓 Strange allies:

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5-spotted

🗯 I’m a big believer that group size is one of the most underrated factors of life. What’s good for 10 people might suck for 10,000 people (and vice versa). Here’s Nassim Nicholas Taleb with a beautiful example of that.

“I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist. If that saying doesn’t convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will.” -

🗯 Viewing stories as shapes, from Kurt Vonnegut:

🗯 Love me some sarcastic Sam Harris. Here he is on platforming, free speech, and being morally unserious. Whole pod is a fantastic listen (or read).

I did criticize Elon Musk for how he handled the deluge of anti-Semitism that came onto Twitter, once he started randomly turning knobs and flipping switches over there like a villain in a James Bond movie. Is he still threatening to sue the Anti-Defamation League? That would be prudent use of resources, wouldn’t it, right about now? Let’s sue the Jews for complaining about murderous anti-Semitism on the platform that I own. Why are the Jews so worried about conspiracy theories that make people want to kill them? Can’t they take a joke? I thought Jews were funny. I also criticized Lex Friedman for platforming Kanye. How does that decision look now? Anyone in alternative media want to stick a microphone in front of Kanye so he can tell us more about how much he hates Jews? Or what about RFK Jr.? Can we get a tech-bro interview with RFK Jr. where he just asks some more questions about Covid being engineered not to infect Ashkenazi Jews? I mean, we’re in the free-speech business, right? What’s wrong with just asking questions? Surely Alex Jones has got some questions he’d like to ask about whether any of the murdered Jews in Israel were really lizard people. I mean, anything less than a full airing of these profundities would amount to censorship, right?

🗯 The Millionaire Slut Apologists explains how Call Her Daddy made bank off of lost young women. Sounds a lot like the female version of men’s rights activists.

The message of Alex and Sofia when the show premiered was not “live laugh love.” It was “be crazy, diet, have sex with rich men, then lie to your future husband.” They would regularly sprinkle in tips on how to manipulate men for presents and funny stories for your friends.

Body Count? Just lie.

Plan B? Just pop it with a bag of M&Ms and make the guy Venmo you.

Alex and Sofia were both anthropologists and slut-apologists, talking frankly about how hot, skinny girls have a better time in life, and ugly women should expect to make some sacrifices. 

🗯 Designer Saul Bass on clients and beauty:

I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything. It’s worth it to me! It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.

Did ya dig this newsletter? Please fwd it onto a friend or two – and if ya really wanna support, sign up for a paid subscription (you’ll get bonus content too).

Thanks. I appreciate you.

-Matt