Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…I was in a gym and I was running on the treadmill. And at that time, CNN was coming up on cable. And I was watching, and there is this studio, I don’t know what it is. So I put the earphones on and I started watching. And I was so taken by this that I stopped the treadmill and I just stood for the 20 minutes like this on the treadmill, just like standing there. I didn’t know what he was saying, I didn’t understand what is Democrats, what is Republicans? Those names that he’s saying… What is Fox News? I don’t understand. But I was fascinated. There was something… You know when you don’t understand the music, but you get the rhythm? It was that. I wonder what that is that you saw. It’s like the timing of the humor. I mean, Jon Stewart is one of a kind. His biting criticism of power, I would say. And also ability to highlight the absurdity of it all. But you understand, I didn’t understand any of that. I didn’t understand any of the references. But it is the rhythm. You know sometimes when you even see a comedy that’s the language you don’t understand, but there’s a rhythm? Da da da, da da da, boom boom. There’s something, there’s something in the music. So there’s something with the videos and the pictures and he and the face and people reacting. What is this? What is this? What is this? And we had the global edition. So I went to the YouTube and I just started to kind of watch every single episode that I can. I said, “Do you think we can have this in Egypt?” I said, “Ah, never.” And then 2011, I had a friend of mine who was also a YouTube partner, it was something new at the time, he said, “Let’s do something on internet. Let’s do something…” I said, “I want to do Jon Stewart.” It’s like, “Nah, do Ray William Johnson, Jon Stewart will not work.” It’s like, “Nah! I want to do Jon Stewart.”…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.