After 18 months of covering politics, culture wars, and nonstop outrage… I hit a wall.
Not because I changed my beliefs.
Not because I backed down.
Because I’ve said it.
And I’m done repeating the same arguments, the same narratives, and the same conversations that go nowhere.
This episode is about that realization.
We get into:
- Why people can’t disagree anymore without it turning into a fight
- The real meaning of “woke” in today’s culture
- Why throwing around words like “fascism” actually matters
- How arguing online drains your time and energy
- And why I’m shifting this show toward something better
Because the truth is…
The world is serious enough.
And honestly? Humanity is ridiculous.
So instead of yelling about it every week…
I’m going to start laughing at it.
Wild stories. Insane behavior. Cultural chaos.
Same blunt voice—just a better time.
👉 Want my take on big topics? Drop it in the comments—I’ll do a quick “Fray Shot” episode.
👉 If you’re ready for the new direction, hit FOLLOW and leave a 5⭐ rating—it helps more than you think.
00:00:00
Nobody can disagree without spitting at each other.
00:00:03
I remember a time when I was able to sit down, have a beer at
00:00:06
the bar with someone I disagreed with.
00:00:09
Now people do not listen. They wait for their chance to
00:00:13
attack. It's not a conversation anymore,
00:00:16
it's a competition. So after all this, finally sat
00:00:19
back and I asked myself, do I really want to live in this
00:00:24
every day, all day, arguing, reacting, breaking down the same
00:00:29
patterns, the same narratives over and over again?
00:00:33
It's exhausting. Quite frankly.
00:00:35
It's not fun. Welcome to Stay in the Fray
00:00:45
podcast. I'm your host, Ryan.
00:00:47
This is where headlines get hit hard, hypocrisy gets shredded,
00:00:51
and the absurd are laughed at. If you want comfort, this isn't
00:00:55
your place. If you want blunt and
00:00:57
unfiltered, I'm your guy. Join me in the fray.
00:01:00
Just listen up. All right, guys, I think I'm
00:01:06
done. Not with the podcast.
00:01:10
Don't worry, I still love to talk.
00:01:13
Anybody that knows me knows that I'm not going anywhere.
00:01:18
I am just done doing it the way the same way I've been doing it
00:01:23
for a while now. For the last what, year and a
00:01:29
half? I've been deep in politics,
00:01:34
current events, culture wars, all of it.
00:01:37
I have no regrets. I'll start there.
00:01:41
This is not A and I was wrong episode in any way.
00:01:48
I meant what I said. I still believe all the things
00:01:52
that I said and when I've made mistakes in the past I've owned
00:01:56
it. But I've said it all calling out
00:01:58
the same narrative as it's applied to every geopolitical
00:02:02
and domestic issue every single day.
00:02:05
I don't need to say it to you people 400 more times when
00:02:10
everything happens each day. Sometimes I feel like I need to,
00:02:14
but I, I, I don't. This episode, this is me taking
00:02:21
a step back and assessing. I needed to figure out what I
00:02:25
actually enjoy doing with all of this.
00:02:30
Honestly, it's pretty easy to sum up.
00:02:33
I need laughter. Nobody laughs anymore.
00:02:36
It's it's everybody's offended. It's gotten maybe a little bit
00:02:41
better in the last year or so, but there's still so many people
00:02:46
who have to walk on egg shells around some of you in the name
00:02:51
of virtue, I want to talk about things that make you think, the
00:02:56
things that maybe you don't know, fun stuff, but things that
00:03:01
make you fucking laugh. The news stories, things that we
00:03:05
don't hear about anymore because everything gets dragged back
00:03:08
into politics. We used to do this kind of stuff
00:03:13
on the show, and I want to get back to it.
00:03:16
Perhaps this can become a place where you come to get away from
00:03:21
all the politics. Ironically, I dove in and now I
00:03:26
want to dive back to hop back out, and I want you guys to come
00:03:29
with me instead of just getting smothered by it all.
00:03:34
Allow me to explain. This is Stay in the Fray
00:03:36
podcast. Let's roll.
00:03:39
So here's one of the main problems right now, especially
00:03:42
in the in here in the US I've talked about it a lot.
00:03:46
Nobody can disagree on something without spitting at each other.
00:03:51
I remember a time when I was able to sit down, have a beer at
00:03:54
the bar with someone who I disagreed with mostly.
00:03:59
We talk out, we talk about it, we go back and forth a little
00:04:02
bit, laugh about things, and maybe we'd even find a few
00:04:05
things where we're like, yeah, you know what, I kind of see
00:04:08
your point. We clink the bottles together,
00:04:11
cheers, chuckle and move on. Now people do not listen.
00:04:20
They wait. They wait for their chance to
00:04:23
attack. It's not a conversation anymore.
00:04:27
It's a competition. And I will own my part of that.
00:04:32
I've spent way too much time of the little time that I have
00:04:37
arguing with you people. Hours and hours just going back
00:04:41
and forth. It always ends in name calling
00:04:45
and feeling and anger. That is not healthy.
00:04:51
I always thought it was as if I was going to call somebody a
00:04:54
piece of shit and all of a sudden they were going to go,
00:04:57
wow, you know what, Ryan's right.
00:04:59
Maybe I should check this guy out some more.
00:05:02
Some people, for some reason, they just love that type of
00:05:06
interaction. I swear they wake up salivating,
00:05:09
excited to jump online and troll away.
00:05:12
That's not me. It's it's, it's been a lot
00:05:16
better now since I decided to cut the troll cord and try my
00:05:21
hardest not to even read the comments.
00:05:23
But I don't want to miss the good ones, and I don't want to
00:05:25
miss the people who want good solid discussions.
00:05:28
So sometimes I find myself glancing and something I
00:05:31
shouldn't. But it was all on me, I admit it
00:05:34
before allowing it to get to that point.
00:05:37
I should have known better and I'm owning that.
00:05:40
I got hooked. I am done now.
00:05:44
I'm done wasting energy on people who are not worth the
00:05:46
hassle. And I encourage you to do the
00:05:49
same if you find yourself in this situation.
00:05:52
Because at some point you realize you're not actually
00:05:55
having conversations anymore, you're just arguing with people
00:05:59
who don't even agree on what words even mean.
00:06:06
Let's talk about that a bit. Before I change this format, I
00:06:11
need to get this off my chest. How about the whole anti woke
00:06:17
stance that I've taken and and still have?
00:06:20
Regardless, it's been a huge part of how I viewed all of
00:06:24
this. It is no secret how I feel, but
00:06:29
just using the word woke seems to trigger people.
00:06:32
It drives some people crazy. Usually it's the people who are
00:06:36
in fact woke. I get it all the time.
00:06:40
Define woke. Well, you're not even.
00:06:42
You're not even using it correctly.
00:06:44
All right, well, I can do that for you.
00:06:47
Let's define it years ago. A long time ago, like like 100
00:06:52
years ago, something like that. Eighty, 9000 years ago, woke
00:06:58
meant, you know, being aware, informed, paying attention,
00:07:04
cool. But language changes, people add
00:07:08
different context. We do it all the time.
00:07:12
I'll use a great example. We used to say literally, the
00:07:18
overuse of that word being one of my biggest pet peeves.
00:07:21
If you know me now, it means, you know, basically or very bad.
00:07:26
Used to mean bad. Now you can use it and it means
00:07:30
good. So yeah, words evolve.
00:07:33
Words and phrases can acquire new meanings.
00:07:37
And in 2026, woke has evolved into something else entirely.
00:07:42
It is a mindset. It's the constant victim
00:07:47
mentality. It is being offended by
00:07:50
everything. It's forcing inclusion in ways
00:07:54
that actually divide people. It's turning every disagreement
00:07:59
into some kind of moral emergency, like you've appointed
00:08:03
yourself the authority on what everyone else is allowed to
00:08:07
think. It's prioritizing identity over
00:08:12
reality. And deep down, most of you know
00:08:16
exactly what I'm talking about. You just don't like hearing it.
00:08:21
Honestly, that kind of proves the point in and of itself.
00:08:26
And this right here is the big reason I leaned so hard into
00:08:29
politics in the 1st place. Because you cannot have real
00:08:33
conversations when people are more focused on the virtue and
00:08:38
catering to a loud minority then they are actually talking about
00:08:42
what makes sense for people as a whole.
00:08:45
You're unable to debate ideas when one side thinks
00:08:49
disagreement is some kind of moral failure.
00:08:53
And that's where everything starts to break down.
00:08:55
I have to do this. How about another word that is
00:08:57
absolutely driving me crazy that people are throwing around
00:09:00
constantly and inaccurately? This one may make me the most
00:09:06
enraged. It's not is annoying, but it's
00:09:10
it's indefinitely angering fascism.
00:09:15
Apparently if you simply don't like something, it's now
00:09:22
fascist. And before you little trolls try
00:09:25
and say but you just said woke could be used differently, there
00:09:29
is a huge difference between the two.
00:09:33
Taking a word like woke and applying it to a modern mindset
00:09:37
versus just throwing around a word like fascism with no idea
00:09:41
what it actually means and you have no intention of adapting.
00:09:45
Meaning this is not harmless. It is a dangerous word and when
00:09:52
you use it incorrectly enough times weak minded people start
00:09:56
to believe it and then they go and begin acting on it.
00:10:01
So let's slow this down for a second.
00:10:03
Let's actually define fascism. Real fascism looks like this.
00:10:09
Authoritarian control, silencing opposition, controlling the
00:10:13
media, punishing people for speaking out, usually with
00:10:17
violence or imprisonment, and no real elections.
00:10:23
All right, some of you are chomping at the bit to try and
00:10:26
compare this country to all of those things, but we'll take
00:10:31
that definition and apply it to the reality and not the orange
00:10:36
man bad version of reality, actual reality.
00:10:41
It falls apart pretty quickly. You do not have to like the
00:10:46
president, but at least know what words mean.
00:10:50
Silencing political opponents. That's all they tried to do with
00:10:54
Donald Trump. Years of investigations,
00:10:58
narratives trying to bury him. How about the fake Russian hoax?
00:11:04
Yeah, when things escalate to the point of violence attempts
00:11:08
on his life, that should concern everyone no matter what side
00:11:13
you're on. Oh, and reminder, they also
00:11:16
literally silenced Donald Trump on social media platforms about
00:11:23
controlling the media. This is where you lose me
00:11:25
people. I know you don't have much ammo
00:11:28
overall, but having late night hosts say dumb things, or other
00:11:34
late night hosts losing money or ratings, or people facing
00:11:40
backlash, that is not media control.
00:11:43
That's called consequences and a free market.
00:11:48
Media control is when the government decides what can and
00:11:52
cannot be said. Media control is when opposing
00:11:57
voices disappear, and until someone has legitimate proof
00:12:03
that that is happening here in the US, it's just more false
00:12:07
rhetoric. And if anything, we've got the
00:12:09
opposite problem. 90% of the media criticizes the president
00:12:13
every single day. Nothing happens to them except
00:12:17
maybe Trump calling them out on on his social media accounts.
00:12:23
That is not suppression. That is actually freedom.
00:12:28
What about punishing people for speaking out?
00:12:31
Let's look at actual regimes, places where people disappear.
00:12:36
Places like Iran where people are sprayed with bullets in the
00:12:40
streets for speaking out. Yelling about two people in this
00:12:46
country who tragically died while attacking and impeding law
00:12:50
enforcement here in the states is not punishing people for
00:12:54
speaking out. All the crazies will stand on
00:12:59
street corners and hold up pre made signs all they want.
00:13:03
They're allowed to do that. You just don't attack law
00:13:07
enforcement elections. We have them, we argue about
00:13:13
them, we question them, we debate them, especially about
00:13:17
voter ID these days. But we have them.
00:13:20
Compare that to places like North Korea where, oh by the
00:13:24
way, Kim Jong Un just won again the other day with a 99.9%, I'm
00:13:30
sorry, 99.8, I believe, percent of the vote.
00:13:33
I wonder what those other point to.
00:13:35
I wonder what happened to them. I'm sure that was completely
00:13:40
accurate though. Come on.
00:13:42
So when you throw around the word fascist without
00:13:45
understanding what it actually means, you're not making some
00:13:49
strong argument. It's not impactful, you're just
00:13:53
proving that you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
00:13:56
And honestly, that kind of thinking is the problem.
00:14:01
Because once words stop meaning anything, conversations stop
00:14:06
meaning anything also. So after all this, I finally sat
00:14:10
back and I asked myself, do I really want to live in this?
00:14:15
Every day, all day, arguing, reacting, breaking down the same
00:14:20
patterns, the same narratives over and over again.
00:14:25
Any time a story hits, I'm looking around, thinking about
00:14:29
all of those things. It's exhausting, quite frankly.
00:14:33
It's not fun, I'll admit that. It is so monotonous at this
00:14:38
point. I enjoyed it for a while because
00:14:40
I had a lot to say, but now it's kind of repetitive and honestly
00:14:47
it's not productive either. Don't get me wrong, I still care
00:14:50
about what's going on, I'm just not going to sit in all of it
00:14:53
constantly because the cold hard truth is the world is serious
00:14:57
enough. Life is hard, and I truly think
00:15:00
we could all use a little more laughter.
00:15:03
There are way too many insane, funny, ridiculous things
00:15:07
happening in the world. Also, we cannot let that slip by
00:15:11
the wayside. Humanity is wild.
00:15:15
People alone are worth the analysis.
00:15:18
And that's what I want to get back to.
00:15:19
We used to do that here. It was great.
00:15:22
We told all sorts of wild stories about things you never
00:15:25
heard before, just just different ways that that people
00:15:29
had, you know, tragedies and, and spooky stuff and and, you
00:15:34
know, ancient beliefs that I mean, all this kind of it was it
00:15:37
was great human behavior. Things that usually made you
00:15:42
laugh and go, what the fuck? I miss that.
00:15:46
It'll be the same blunt voice, just a better time.
00:15:51
And yeah, I'll speak on the rumor that Trey may or or may
00:15:56
not come back. I lost him once and I'm going to
00:15:59
try not to do it again. When it comes to the show,
00:16:02
honestly, that was the best version of the podcast.
00:16:06
We just had fun. We reacted to each other.
00:16:10
And I thought there was a brilliance there.
00:16:11
We built something and it was going somewhere, and I'll take
00:16:15
responsibility for being sucked in the politics part of it.
00:16:19
It was a lot more fun before all that hit.
00:16:22
He and I became smarter by learning all that stupid shit,
00:16:27
laughing at it. We are filled with random facts
00:16:31
and knowledge because of it. That is the balance that I want.
00:16:36
That's what I want this to be again.
00:16:39
So no, this is not me stepping away, This is me levelling it
00:16:44
up. And trust me, humanity gives us
00:16:47
plenty to work with. So let's have some fucking fun
00:16:50
again, shall we? And hey, if you, if you're
00:16:53
disappointed that I'm not going to sit here and yell at people
00:16:56
about politics every week again, let me know that it would mean a
00:17:00
lot to me to know that you actually got something from it
00:17:04
or that it made an impact in some way.
00:17:06
And perhaps there's some sort of, I don't know, mini clip or
00:17:10
something I can do if there's if there's a topic you'd like to
00:17:13
hear me in my opinion on. But I have a feeling a lot of
00:17:17
you are ready for this next version of the Fray.
00:17:22
Give it a shot. Come enjoy the ride.
00:17:26
Either way, however it ends up going, which however, whatever
00:17:29
the specific path is, it's going to be fun.
00:17:34
I can promise you that much. So stay sharp, stay laughing,
00:17:40
stay unfiltered, stay in the fray.
00:17:43
See you guys soon. Love you.
00:17:45
All you need to do is just listen up.