Transcription
I'm Jenny Gage and this is Life Take Two.
And then you have the radical left lunatics and what's that all about? I mean, they're fighting us because we want to stop crime. Where did these people come from? They're paid money. I guess they're paid a lot of money, but like I saw that ridiculous march the other day. I say these people are not representative of our country. And and not all of them, of course, but many of them are total low lives. These are low lives. These are people that are paid agitators and they're not representative of our country. So, I don't know. They did a poll the other day. The direction of our country is better than it's been in 37 years. And I'm upset because I think it's it should be better than that. I actually said we should be better than that. So, you know.
Hey everybody, I'm Jenny. This is Life Take Two. I know there's a lot of great stuff out there on YouTube. I always appreciate you stopping on my channel. I'm going to warn you here and now that I will probably cry in this video because I'm a little riled up. And this afternoon, I tuned into the White House press conference just to listen to my president, the president of the United States of America, who is sworn to defend and protect all of the citizens of this country. And I heard what you heard. I heard him ripping on people for no reason. Basically calling me a scumbag and a loser because I'm a leftist. Because I'm a Democrat. Because we got up as a family and went to the New King's March on Saturday. I am not a real American. And there's something about hearing my president say that when I have worked for 51 years, to be a good citizen, to do the best that I can to help other Americans around me, to bear and raise children who are an integral part of this country. I have picked up litter. I have paid my taxes. I have volunteered in schools. I have given my entire life to make the country that I live in a better place and my president thinks I'm a piece of garbage.
And so I wrote this script for him. There's something that's been bothering me ever since Charlie Kirk was tragically killed. And I've kept it bottled up inside all this time. But today we have to talk. I have to spill my guts all over your screen. I am sick of being told that I'm supposed to idolize a pile of garbage. Sick of seeing streets named for people who don't deserve to have a sandwich of the week named after them at my favorite lunch spot, let alone a street. It makes me sick. It feels wrong. Here's the deal. We've gotten in the habit of crowning villains and calling them heroes and we think they are in fact heroes just because of the hero hashtag, but they're not. And it's making us the laughingstock of the [ __ ] world. Welcome to America where trash is treasured.
Once upon a time, we emulated the good. We looked up to people because of what lived inside them. Their character, their courage, their quiet strength. Today, we just worship the flash, the influence, the fame. We no longer emulate goodness. We imitate greed. And I want to talk about that because I'm tired of pretending that these kings of rot deserve our reverence. I'm tired of seeing saints of the sewer crowned for their filth. I'm tired of living in a culture that polishes glittering garbage and tells me it's gold when I know damn well that it's not. The word emulate comes from the Latin amuli to strive to equal or excel. It's not just about imitation. It's about aspiration. We become what we emulate. And I look around and I wonder, what are we becoming? What the hell am I being told I should want to become? Because I'd hate to see any of my kids grow up to be Donald Trump or anybody in his administration. I would hate my kids to grow up to be Charlie Kirk, a man who built a career on hating people he didn't even know. I'd hate for them to think that cruelty is currency or that domination is leadership or that shouting down strangers on a campus is courage.
When did we stop celebrating people of depth and integrity? When did our saints become podcasters with million-dollar pools and Barbie style hair extensions, murmuring prayers beside their Italian tiled hot tubs while the world around them [ __ ] burns. Once upon a time, you had to work your whole life to become a saint. Mother Teresa renounced everything. She lived in the streets, touched the untouchable, gave until there was nothing left in her to give, and still barely made it into saintthood. Now, all you need is a microphone and some type of monetized outrage, say a few prayers on camera, post a clip, slide a scripture into that post, and let the algorithm do the rest. I've asked myself recently why this bothers me so much. I lay in bed first thing in the morning just wondering why am I so bugged by these people that are being shoved down our throats as heroes that shouldn't be. They're the villains. They're the bad guys. They're the people I want to tell my kids, don't be like them at all. And we're supposed to worship and praise them. Why does this bug me so much? Why do I feel sick watching the worship of Donald Trump, a man convicted, corrupt, best friends with a pedophile, and still somehow treated like a savior? Maybe it's because never before in my lifetime have I been expected to bow down to such total buckets of vomit. To call sewage sacred and special, to pretend that the stench of moral decay smells like roses.
I like it. It's nice. This is great. Last night I was going to a concert. Kevin and I had planned to walk over. We go to this place for concerts on Wednesday nights. It's whiskey night and a concert. It's walking distance to my house. But the concert was cancelled for Charlie Kirk's birthday celebration. The amphitheater echoed with cheers that bounced all the way across the aoyo into my window and off the popcorn ceiling into my ears for hours. And all I could think was we used to cancel these creeps and now we celebrate them. Matt Lowour, Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton, Jeffrey Epstein. These men were cancelled for their crimes as they should have been. [ __ ] [ __ ] them all. But today, these creeps would get a Medal of Honor. And we wonder why our culture feels like a landfill. Somewhere along the line, we started putting garbage on pedestals. We bow to the worst in humanity. We no longer just consume filth. We praise it. Imagine a new version of George Washington's cherry tree story, except he chops down the tree, kicks his brother into a ditch, like kills the family cow, and still ends up in the textbooks as a great man and an example for children everywhere that we should all emulate. Best president ever. That is America right now. That is our moral education.
It wouldn't be one of my videos if we didn't pop into Jenny's confession book for just a minute. So, I'm going to tell you something. I don't look up to Erica Kirk at all. I don't admire her. She's not my hero. I don't think that anything that she's doing is cool. I want to see her donation receipts, not her devotion reels and pictures of her dead husband's hands. I need to see more out of Erica Kirk than tight abs, golden flowy hair, toned legs, and a designer funeral fit. For me to look up to somebody and call them my hero, I want to measure her worth in compassion, not followers. And honestly, I'd also like to add a couple inches to her skirt. Not because I care about modesty, but because I'm tired of the hypocrisy. The church girls talking about modesty, prancing around stages in their designer miniskirts with nannies back home telling the rest of us how to be biblical, modest, stay-at-home women. I'm sick to death of that.
And I got to confess something else. Here's what I think about Charlie Kirk. I think Charlie Kirk died the way he lived with hate in his mouth and applause in his ears. And and I'm not even mad at him. I hold nothing against him. This isn't about him. It's about us. It's about the followers. His legacy is a mirror of the culture that made him a loud empty echo chamber that mistakes noise and likes and clicks and engagement for truth. Right now, all you need to be a hero is a podcast. All you need to be remembered is a brand. They'll name a street after you if you're loud enough. Why? Follow the money. Follow the power. That's where all the new saints are buried under piles of cash and followers and likes. We've stopped asking what's good and started asking what's profitable, what gets the clicks, what gets the views. We've replaced heroes with influencers. Social media influencers, political influencers, economic influencers. The brand deal rules the world. We've replaced prophets with podcasters. We've replaced virtue with visibility.
When I was a kid, my heroes were totally different. Here's some my childhood heroes. Rosa Parks, who sat down so others could stand up. You guys know I'm obsessed with Rosa. Laura Ingles Wilder, who lived humbly, wrote honestly, and found joy in a few Indian beads buried in a red ant hill. I was obsessed with Laura. Jacquellyn Kennedy who lived and breathed grace under fire. Michael Jordan who didn't just fly, he soared. He inspired me throughout all of my high school years. I remember watching him jump the net whispering like a him like Mike. The ad said like Mike. If I could be like Mike. I would hear that music play and be so inspired. My whole college wardrobe was split between Michael Jordan for casual wear, Jackie O stuff for elegance. I thought of Jackie every time I had to stand in front of a room and speak. Shoulders back, chin lifted, soft smile of steel. I picked that up from her. And I did that all wearing a French wool swing coat. I'd worked half the summer at my Safeway job as a senior in high school to afford for college. It was the closest thing I could find to a photo I had of the young Miss Bouvier that I'd clipped from Vogue years before. My heroes made me better. They made me want to rise. And that's what a hero is supposed to do.
To emulate is to strive toward greatness. But what happens when greatness itself is redefined? When cruelty is trending and greed is on brand and exploitation is hashtagged as entrepreneurship. Y'all know the guilded age, right? Well, we are now living in the era of glittering garbage where the rot is goldplated and the kings wear crowns of corruption and build ballrooms. And our children scroll through these saints of the sewer thinking they're looking at success. And that worries me more than anything. But here's the truth. A real hero doesn't need followers. They need conviction. A real hero doesn't trend. They transform. They build. They lift. They sacrifice. They give a damn about someone other than themselves. We've crowned these villains and called them heroes. We've let the kings of rot sit on thrones built from our attention spans. We've worshiped saints of the sewer because we forgot how to tell the difference between glitter and real gold. But I still believe we can remember. I still believe we can reclaim what it means to emulate. Not to envy power, but to aspire to goodness. Because I don't want my kids to grow up in a world where cruelty wins. I want them to grow up emulating kindness, courage, honesty, humility. I want my kids to see through the glittering garbage and find something real. Heroes aren't gone. They're just being drowned out by the noise. So, let's turn down the volume. Let's stop worshiping rot. Let's actually lift up the ones who make us better, not the ones who make us worse. It's so simple. It seems insane that we're not already doing this because the world doesn't need more kings. It needs more light. And it needs people brave enough to just say, "No more false gods. No more glittering garbage. We're done crowning the [ __ ] villains."
Here's your homework. Stop following garbage. Unsubscribe from rot. Turn off the glittering noise and look for the real thing and follow that and support that and celebrate that and emulate that. My granddad, who is and always will be my greatest hero ever, used to say, "Garbage in, garbage out." And he was right. What we consume becomes who we are. So if you fill your mind with sewage and that's who you're trying to be like, don't be surprised when the air around you starts to smell like a rotting soul. If you want to know who your heroes are, look at who you're emulating. And if they're not pushing you towards goodness, they are pulling you towards the gutter. A real hero doesn't need fame to be great. A real hero is number one honest when no one is watching. Number two, kind even when it costs them. Number three, brave enough to stand alone, even if that means they leave the whole crowd behind. Number four, humble enough to admit when they're wrong and make repairs. Number five, y'all know I'm obsessed with curiosity. A real hero is curious enough to keep learning and exploring. And number six, generous enough to lift someone else higher, even if that person is lifted over their own heads. That's who I want my kids to emulate. That's who I want us to celebrate again. Because I will no longer even pretend to bow to a trash pile and pretend it's anything other than a pile of trash. I will not kneel before these kings of rot or sing hymns to saints of the sewer or let glittering garbage blind me to the truth. If it's rotten, call it rotten. If it's garbage, take it out. Because this country doesn't need more followers. It needs more heroes worth emulating.
I personally have a handful of heroes today. I've told you a few of my childhood ones. Harriet Tubman, who wasn't happy having her own freedom. She risked it all to drag others to safety at great risk to herself. Crazy horse who fought the invaders with all he had. I love his story. I love his courage. My partner Kevin, who quietly changes tires and jumps batteries of all of our neighbors on dark mornings, I hear about it from the neighbors. He is the quiet rock that everything that I do is built on. My single mom daughter who holds up the world with grace on her thin shoulders, making everyday life a little bit of Disneyland magic for my grandbaby. These are the people who make me better, who inspire me daily, who give me lift. These are the people I want to emulate. Thanks for watching and I would love for you to drop your heroes in the comments. I'll be down there in a bit hanging out to see what you have to say. Love you guys.