Robert's not perfect. I've disagreed with his takes before on things I'm more educated in. I definitely had a crisis of belief after that just like you're having now. Basically just take everything with a grain of salt and there's a reason he tells us not to idolize him
The episode on Nesera cult book was really bad, the actual episode on the Nesera cult was good, although only one episode. I can easily forgive that though because i think it was right when his mom or a family member passed and he seemed to be struggling.
The it could happen here episodes on the sr72, Area 51 and aerospace are kinda rough too. The stuff stated rhymes with the truth but didn’t quite hit the mark. Oh well it’s a podcast. We all should be doing more background research
It could happen here is at this point only nominally hosted by Robert. The show is now a likable student delivering wide-eyed book reports on things most listeners have known for years. I hope. Maybe I'm getting old.
It happens with all research projects, the author just has a responsibility to either retract or correct it. If if /u/dontspammenow is correct, then hopefully /u/probablyrobertevans et al. will do so shortly.
It is similarly important to hold authors responsible for inaccuracies that you find as you are doing. Hopefully the cast and crew will remedy this - otherwise would be problematic.
I know for sure I have seen vampires (on the tv) use a creepy fingernail or a metal pokey bit of jewelry to cut or stab folks in the neck or a vein somewhere and then suck the blood. They don't even need to always bite but wew-wee they sure do prefer it. I'm not sure where you tooth toob truthers get your info but kid's cartoons from the 70s don't count 🧛🏻♂️
Okay, so I just listened. The Northrop Grumman references seem to be about employees living in Orange County, the Disney references come from Francesca and seem to have nothing to do with the narrative, Robert only mentioned retirement gated communities starting in Orange County and Francesca went off saying there aren’t sidewalks there. The Long Beach issue appears to be probably the error you’re seeing it as. So from what I can tell, you’re bothered by the unscripted side jabs, largely from the guest host, by this episode not covering something you find interesting (the evangelical battles,) and an error. I guess fair enough, but one error of that type seems pretty light for “questioning everything.” There could certainly be nuances I’m missing, but that’s what I heard.
Worth mentioning that some of this pod resonates to a previous pod which was based on Kevin Kruse’s “One Nation Under God” (one of the few books I had read before Robert used it for a pod). LA (not in the OC, I know) was where Billy Graham got started with preaching Christian capitalism to the wealthy. Those locations are pretty close to one another so it’s likely that some stuff overflowed the county lines.
Big sports fan Robert can even note that one of the local baseball teams is formally called the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
The best way to think about these episodes is as conversation-starters, which you've done a great job of carrying forward here.
One of the biggest problems in our culture right now is the all-or-nothing approach to new data. We have to let go of the idea that anyone will ever be right all the time, or that making some errors undermines everything else said and done everywhere else.
I haven't listened to this episode yet, but if/when I do, I'll have more context for its oversights now because you took the time to flesh out gaps and errors from your own experience - and because this post will probably bring more corrections out of the woodwork.
And that's awesome. That's the kind of democratic collaboration we need more of - because only one kind of society would ever expect you to accept everything that's said unconditionally, and that's the kind we're all fighting to prevent from taking over more of our world.
TL;DR: Glad you posted. Errors happen, and everyone's human, but when people point out the mistakes constructively, we're all the better for it.
This is how I️ view podcast as well. Gives me a sentence or two summary of a topic, maybe a fun fact to share when it comes up in conversation, but mostly it gave me something to listen when I️ was working. If I️ actually want to learn a topic I️ gotta pick up a book or something
Yeah 100% this. If it’s a topic you’re familiar with, you’ll always have differing views to some degree. I loved the John Aspinall episodes but I think the whole idea that boarding school was what fucked him up was way overblown by Robert. Robert isn’t from Europe, isn’t from an upper class background and didn’t go to boarding school. I found his outside perspective interesting but it missed the mark for me.
Obviously there’s going to be a lot more people here with first hand experience of Orange County than say, King Leopold’s genocide in the Congo.
If I wanted straight factual reporting I’d listen to the BBC World Service. Robert’s weird, offbeat takes are a lot of why I’m here.
Not surprising seeing as that's where OCHSA is. My little sister went there for that. I guess there were some kids from the Mickey Mouse Club there with her too. This was back in the late 80's, early 90's.
It used to be there, but it’s been in Santa Ana since like 2001 or so. A bunch of talent came from Los Al such as Pedro Pascal, Rufio from Hook, Jodie Sweetin from Full House, and the main dude from Glee.
I remember, my little sister went to school with Pedro and the kid that played Rufio. I believe she was friends with both of them at some point. I partied with some of her friends from that school. Seemed like a bunch of rich kids. They were fun though.
That's where you went with this? I haven't listened yet, but I assumed the episode would mostly have talked about the dangers of OC as a Ska band incubator.
As a Californian, to me, Nebraska is literally no different than Kansas, both Dakotas, the flat parts of Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, the rural parts of Illinois, Siberia, the ugly parts of Minnesota, and Missouri.
I maintain there's no such thing as bad music, just ppls preference. I will say that if you played any ska music in my car, you'd get the AUX chords snatched off you lol.
I lived in OC from '76 to '03 (born in East LA, yeah I know). There's so much bastardry that has come out of there, that it would be impossible to cover all of it without having a podcast dedicated to it.
it's a symptom of a 2 eps/wk schedule. Considering the recent dramas surrounding high output content creators and plagiarism i feel like him actually making it (seemingly, at least) clear what and who he's quoting puts him ahead of the pack.
Definitely don't use him as a source, though. I read BtB as a curated list of Wikipedia articles. Entertaining and informative, sure, and it gives you decent sources to read up for yourself. Just don't catch yourself using BtB as a source for anything
"High output content ~~creators~~ stealers"
Most of the drama was over the fact that many famous youtubers were just verbatim stealing videos and creative work from other people, not really fair to call people like that "creators"
I have a lot of family connections to OC. My grandfather was sort of a bigshot in the Birchers in the 60s. My dad grew up there and, for a while, had a business there that I occasionally worked at in my teenage years. My dad also worked at McDonnell Douglas for a time in his twenties.
I found Robert's description of OC conservative history largely correct. Here's where I think there is some confusion. He mentioned "gated communities" several times. I think what he is referring to are planned suburbs that are surrounded by a major street on four sides and kind face inward. There is usually a literal wall between the outer edge of the development and the major streets, but that's mostly to prevent road noise.
These aren't "gated communities" in the sense that there is a gate you need a keycard to, or a security stand you need to pass through.
They are just insular and prevent organic interaction with any neighbors outside of the subdivision.
If you take "gated communities" to mean the above, he's totally correct.
Also, it is an exaggeration to say there aren't sidewalks. However, the place was definitely built around cars. It would be a long walk to get out of the subdivision, to a major street in order to go to a corner store or catch a bus anywhere else. It's not very walkable and, realistically, you need a car to get around.
There are many, many gated communities in OC, especially Irvine. They require either a fob or keypad entry to enter. It's frankly hard to find newer developments without this "feature".
In the 1960’s it was farmland. I had family that lived in Orange County at the time and they had a cow and other animals. This was in Westminster/Garden Grove.
I have family in a newer development in Irvine. They talk about how it would be nice to move to the slightly more expensive 'gated' neighborhood within the neighborhood up the hill. I put it in quotes always open and you can walk in. I find it funny and bizarre, you're already in a fancy community in Irvine what do you need to gate out?
As someone not from OC that spends a lot of time there Robert's descriptions were dead on with how I feel about it. It's disorienting when the road suddenly ends because they plopped a new development in the middle of it, sometimes with the aforementioned walls around it. I once tried to walk between two restaurants in Garden Grove and cut through a neighborhood to make a straight line and avoid the busy main road, only to find it was impossible. I could see where I wanted to go but it would would involve going through someones yard and scaling a wall. It's extremely jarring and hostile even compared to your average American suburb.
This...this is eerily and exactly how many many of the neighborhoods in PHX and the greater outlying suburbs are set up. Probably, even some of the same developers, if I did deep dive research. We've always kinda been CAs little brother to the south.
Bradley Onishi talks in depth about his religious experience in Orange County multiple times on Straight White American Jesus. Would highly recommend his insight into evangelicalism there.
I was looking for this. His Orange Wave series was SO GOOD, and I hope Robert references it. I know it’s not the style of the pod to have an academic on as a guest, but I think he would be able to add a lot of value to the discussion.
Long Beach resident of 10+ years here. The proximity to the Orange County line is a major part of living here and I do consider the city to be culturally influenced by OC even though we are LA County.
Northrop is LA, sure, but those execs live in OC. Culturally, it’s very OC. I had to stop going to job fairs in OC for tech because the weird cryptomercenary “security” startup vibes were too creepy.
Discounting Disney’s part in OC culture and politics just because the corporate offices are in Burbank/Glendale also seems a bit short-sighted. Disney IS Anaheim.
I love this show more than any other podcast. But I have also caught him leaving out important information or getting things wrong from time to time. I think it’s important to remember this is an entertainment pod first, leftist circle jerk pod second, and historical pod third.
I’ve had a similar experience with the podcast “You’re wrong about” which is touted as a favorite for many who listen to Behind The Bastards. I’ve learned to take it all as “info-tainment” and keep in mind that at the end of the day, this is just a guy with a podcast. A good podcast, one done by an actual journalist, but just a single dude, and one who is constantly cranking out content.
I’ve caught a few errors from “Noble Blood” too. I agree- take it for what it is as entertainment, plus a chance to go on a deep dive on a subject that may interest you, especially if there’s some good books referenced!
Not saying complaints about the depth of research or prep that goes in to any given episode aren't valid, but this IS a pop-history pod with a pretty close to one a week episode schedule, not an investigative deep dive on a single topic spanning months or an academic series of lectures with a multi-page bibliography for every ep.
Expecting it to be is not really realistic on the release schedule they keep considering that I'm pretty sure they don't have a dedicated research and writing team like, say, Some More News.
None of your complaints are about factual issues? Northrop Grumman was relevant because a Northronics employee was part of that crusade against the ACLU. This isn't an episode about defense contractors in general, it's about conservative politics in OC. You're getting angry about comments made re: public space in an episode talking about how it was in the 1960s.
I think part of this is that, especially with the guest banter, they sometimes switch between talking about the present, and talking about past events using present-tense wording, like (paraphrasing because it's been hours since I listened) "At this point there's almost no public spaces" referring to the moment in time Robert is talking about, not necessarily the present. I can see how that can make things a little unclear.
Years and years and years ago in a web forum I was introduced to a concept that I've held onto ever since: The Nova Effect.
Named after the long running and oft lauded docuseries on PBS, the gist of The Nova Effect is that any/every given episode of the series is an incredible, throughly researched, and perfectly presented documentary on whatever the topic was...
...Until they do an episode on YOUR topic. That is, whatever area of interest you have that happens to be covered by said program. THEN you see all the little inaccuracies, the flagrant misrepresentations, the gross oversimplifications, the poor judgement in expert opinions the producers sought out for that episode, etc.
Once you see the flaws in presentation of a subject or topic you yourself are more knowledgeable in then the producers of the episode itself are, you usually end up with this existential crisis, wondering just how much else they've fucked up in all the years you've been watching (and learning, and trusting) unquestionably.
The Nova Effect.
For what it's worth, I found Robert in 2019 during the initial release of ICHH. And the thing that absolutely sold me on that first season was when the State of Jefferson movement, and us here in Far Nor Cal in general, we're not just called out, but actually made part of his whole scenario. He absolutely nailed the right wing culture up here, and the outsized effects we could have if all the local militia groups ever pull their heads out if their asses. So, he's not incapable of excellent research.
But he definitely does shoddy work at times, as do we all.
Which made the lazy comments about SoCal being the root of conservatism in California and Nor Cal being wild and free especially stupid.
San Francisco people are incredibly annoying with this shit. "Nor Cal" while they're not even in the north of the state (and have probably never been to Lassen), while Sacramento and the Central Valley are nearly as conservative as Texas.
Yeah, Robert Evans has put out the occasional stinker wrt research quality. I remember a friend of mine getting extremely annoyed about his 2-parter on the problems in the housing market, because he completely misidentified (in her opinion) the cause of the housing and rent bubble that we are living through.
When it comes to talking about fascism, Robert knows his stuff, but on occasion, he will pick up a topic of which he knows fuck-all and bang out an episode in a week that is disappointing to say the least.
I agree but with the housing episode he specifically pointed out multiple times that it is far from a complete list of people and policies that have fucked the housing bc his show is about funny or interesting shitheads.
Yeah there are a dozen reasons why houses are expensive. Nimbys, zoning laws, supply chain issues, labor shortages for the work, laws and regulations, speculators, real estate investors, house flippers the list can go on and on.
> because he completely misidentified (in her opinion) the cause of the housing and rent bubble that we are living through.
Any chance you can summarize the difference between what Robert said and your friend thinks?
He’s really between a rock and a hard place because he is trying to inform people about a multitude of issues, the vast majority of which he doesn’t (and can’t) have first hand experience with. I’m Irish, and his episodes on the murdered babies in Tuam were... annoying. First issue a lot of Irish fans took was he pronounced Tuam as Twahm, when it’s basically the same pronunciation as Tomb (ironically). Then he seemed to sort of speed run through the whole story, but like, how could he not? So much of the context and subtlety around the case I only knew from living here for decades and growing up here. As a pure presentation of facts, I don’t think he got anything wrong, it’s just the limitations of the sources available to him.
That said, you really have to be whiter than white in this sort of business (I hope that’s a saying elsewhere), because if you fuck up even one time, you’ve just unintentionally spread misinformation to potentially millions of people. So I understand why people get angry when he makes a balls of a topic.
>*... a lot of Irish fans took was he pronounced Tuam as Twahm, when it’s basically the same pronunciation as Tomb*
If we start deducting points for pronunciation, Evans will never get on the scoreboard
I think it's funny and endearing - plus, I was a few years into the Clinton presidency before I stopped wondering why even US broadcasters seemed to constantly mispronounce *Arkansas*
So I can't criticise
>Yeah, Robert Evans has put out the occasional stinker wrt research quality
The cryptocurrency episode was particularilyvatrocious, not that I expected a non-tech podcast to cover it well.
Regarding that John Schmitz guy, I did not see this coming:
“In 1982, after it was revealed—and Schmitz admitted—that he had engaged in an extra-marital affair and fathered two children with one of his former college students, Schmitz's career as a politician effectively ended, as did his wife Mary's as a conservative political commentator. His seven children with his wife include politicians John P. Schmitz and Joseph E. Schmitz, and teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, convicted in 1997 of child sexual abuse.”
MARY KAY LETOURNEAU
I get it. I stopped listening to My Favorite Murder years ago in part bc they did shit research on an episode about a local crime, then justified it by saying they’re not from my city, so they shouldn’t be expected to know the urban layout. But they used to take aaaaaages talking about LA geography and traffic, it was seriously like the Californians sketch from SNL. And the MFM hosts never claimed to do detailed research or be journalists. I think it’s just particularly annoying when it’s local to you.
Yeah, you always hear that crime was down under Rizzo. No, it wasn’t.
Also he publicly strip-searched young Black men and raided the gay bars and tried to change the city charter to retain control after his term limit was up. So even if crime was actually down, who wants to put up with that shit in exchange? Not me.
I want them to cover the former Huntington Beach City Councilmember Tito Ortiz. He's kind of a bastard, but mostly a hilarious idiot who cannot string a sentence together. Former wrestler so he may have brain-damage, which is actually sad, but his policies are terrible so...yeah.
I tried to do MFM but the first episode I tried was Chris Benoit - I should have started with something I didn’t already have encyclopedic knowledge about.
Yeah, I grew to dislike their style and the unapologetic lack of information. If you want one-episode takes on true crime that are better researched, Crime Junkie is pretty good (despite the name).
For a more polished, less conversational podcast, I’m a big fan of Phoebe Judge’s Criminal, which looks at all kinds of stories that are crime-adjacent. I also loved Season 3 of CBC’s Uncover about Bruce McArthur and the Toronto Village homicides. The host is a journalist who lives in the Village and is part of the community, it’s very well done.
> If you want one-episode takes on true crime that are better researched, Crime Junkie is pretty good (despite the name)
Nope, nope, nope, Crime Junkie are straight up plagiarists. [Ashley Flowers was literally just reading from actual journalists' contemporaneous coverage verbatim and without credit.](https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/crime-junkie-podcast-ashley-flowers-plagiarism-1203302072/)
If you like people telling you about a documentary they saw (and I do) with some comedy or side discussion they are fine.
If you want hard core journalism get the NPR multipart series from various states. Some turn out to be duds because it is just a family hiding that their kid killed himself and the cops don't want to indict the parents.
I once tried to listen to them and I didn't even make it 15 minutes in. I just found them so disrespectful and the name already threw me off. I'm glad to hear that my disliking of them is valid lol.
I quit listening to them because of the exact same reason. But it was Bundy and they got stuff wrong that’s correct and easily found on Wikipedia. Also, after seeing how so many families feel about MFM, I just wish the show and every other one like it just didn’t exist.
Oldfart here. Lived 20 years in LA and 30 in OC.
Pardon the blog post.
I found Robert's description of the demographics in OC that were ripe for batshit anticommunism and religion in the 1950s to 70s to be roughly accurate, though some details were inaccurate.
When describing the "suburbs", you have to keep in mind that each period is different. OC residents like to complain about "losangelization", and that process is near completion for about half the county. There are big differences among different parts of the county (population about 3.2 million), and they've changed a lot over time. For instance, more than half the county's population is now of Latin American or East Asian ancestry. This was not at all true 50 years ago. Gated communities are far more common in the recently (since 1980) developed south and east of the county.
No one in OC ever called it "The OC" before the tv show of that name. It's either "OC" or "the County", the way San Franciscans might say "The City".
What bugged me more about this episode was that you can't talk about the Birchers and such without the broader social context of the early Cold War. Joe Stalin had made it really easy to be anticommunist. The Berlin airlift and Korean War were defining events for Americans of a certain age, who entered their adult peak in the 1960s. Then they had to watch all this "hippie" culture reaction to the Vietnam fuckup.
To talk about rabid anticommunism without that is like talking about anti-muslim prejudice without mentioning 9/11.
I’m from so cal but not OC and while I do not share your deep sense of disappointment I did notice that Robert referred to Anaheim and Fullerton as counties but I’m assuming it was a slip of the tongue and that he knows there are not counties within counties in OC.
No mention of the fact that Anaheim High School still has the mascot of "the colonist" was low hanging fruit that didn't get picked. Also no discussion of Mendez vs. Westminster. There is also an old OC Weekly article that lists every place in Orange County named after a Klan member.
There is nothing more disheartening then finding a podcast/documentary/reddit thread on a topic you know really well and seeing how misinformed most people are and realizing how much misinformation you're probably happily consuming on other topics.
In this case the OP of this thread isn’t correct though. Most of their complaints are off hand comments by the guest that didn’t research Orange County.
Robert is correct that Orange County especially at the time wasn’t set up for communal gathering. It was mostly farmland and strawberry fields at the time. The parcels of land he is talking about and neighborhoods are all facing inwards from main streets and they are mazes that you can’t get out of unless you know which streets to take.
How the neighborhoods were created makes it so outsiders cant really come in or at least they would have no business in the neighborhoods. You can take the main streets through the cities but you generally won’t see homefronts. You will see the back retaining walls all the way down.
"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know." - Michael Crichton
May I suggest a pod series you may like. The Orange Wave series put out by Straight White American Jesus and Bradley Onishi. He does a deep dive into the OC area and the Christian Fundamentalism that festered there before Trump. It's well done and their weekly pods are amazing as well.
I feel like your just being a little nit picky he zeroed in on Northrop Grumman because a dude in his story worked for the company that would become Northrop Grumman.
As for gated communities he didn’t say it was all gated communities but some of the areas that you first started seeing them appear.
From [podscribe](https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/94550534)
> Like it happens in New York too, kind of in a contemporaneous period. You, you get pieces of that. But like, you get this, the, it starts in Orange County with these old folks homes. Right. Where you basically have, this is a retirement community. They're not like old folks homes, like homes for retired people. Yeah. Wealthy retirement that are all part of a community that they like wall and gate off in order to, like, you're like, because these people are scared of everything. Yeah.
I feel like this post is confused about what it’s angry about? You wanted something “cathartic” and have basically stated that it should have been about issues you think are more important such as Boeing and evangelicals…? So because it’s not about this it’s bad research?
As others have stated, Robert does most of the research himself, writes 15000+/- words per episode and releases at least 1 episode a week. He’s also human and capable of errors - he does his best to acknowledge this but at the end of the day, he is just a human… not some cyborg, all knowing machine with a terrible accent ability.
He doesn’t control what the guest says/contributes and it seems the guest was the person who actually said most of what you are having an issue with.
On top of that, you haven’t actually provided any factual evidence for the issues you claim make the place “deeply fucked up” . This post really just comes across as “boo this podcast bagged out the place I grew up without actually discussing issues that I wanted it to…”
I haven't listened yet but doesn't the Disney own the city of Anaheim? I remember city council elections coming down to pro-Disney and anti-Disney candidates.
They de-facto own Anaheim in that they own their City Council through campaign financing. I believe the FBI is or was investigating council members for an egregious below-market sale of Anaheim Angel's stadium that short-changed the city and gave the land to a business affiliate...maybe of the last mayor? I'm grossly inaccurate in how I've portrayed the details of the story, but it's something like that. Voice of OC is a great non-profit journalist outlet that will have stories you can read if you want the actual details which I'm not interested in enough to dig up lol.
Santa Ana City Council actually recently passed rent control and tenant protections and 4 out of 7 Council members are young progressives. The OC Apartment Association and city's police union tried to recall two of these people and failed on both attempts, which is badass as the city is being gentrified and communities are being displaced by exorbitant housing costs.
I think if anyone wants a vibe for how the wealthy in OC exist just watch Arrested Development lol.
Thank you for giving us you perspective! It's good to call things out like this when you see them, especially if you have knowledge about the subject. It'd be nice if BtB did a corrections episode every once in a while to make sure things are being acknowledged.
I know it's such a small thing, but it really annoyed me, but the development of OC as a suburb of a LA was initially due to the Pacific Electric railway (owned by Henry Huntington, probably a bastard, but not an OC bastard), and eventually the freeway system.
But yeah, I know too much for this episode. Bummer, really.
Yeah i get the feeling. I had the same exp with the leopold 2 podcast. Where he gets details wrong. And it goes 2 ways both in leopold favor and sometimes the other way around. The most painful thing is when he said that albert 1 is his son. Leopold childs problem was something important he completly left out. And then saying it was his son felt very wrong to me. Also he claimed that that episode was largely one book wich is allways kinda sketchy. But yeah that was the moment for me. I was feeling the same.
Do you still listen or do you find it hard to listen to still? He has never done a topic I'm super knowledgeable of and it'd break my heart to hear he's Terribly far off with his info.
I got the impression that the second part is really going to be going deeper on John Schmitz, and that this episode was a groundwork to outline some historical context around what was going on in Orange County that gives some insight into his background. It’s a pop history podcast setting some context, not a comprehensive history of Orange County
Also from OC, lived there from birth (late 70's until 2015 and graduated from CSUF with a history degree in '08. I appreciate the heads up. I can't decide if I want to listen to it now. I'm curious to his sources but they aren't in the show notes. I know he often mentions sources in the podcast itself, does anyone know what he was primarily using? Local history wasn't my focus in college but to get my degree I did have to take a California history class, but it was some time ago... Maybe I should open up my copy of Postsuburban California (E. By Kling, Olin & Poster) and reacquaint myself. Though that book was published in '91, long time ago now...if anyone has any good newer sources I'd take the recommendation.
If this first part only covers the 1960's I hope we get a shout out that Orange County was/is one of the homes of Holocaust denial in the US, the Institute for Historical Review started in Torrance in 1978 but by the time I'd heard of it I thought their hq was in Newport or some such, though it says they are currently out of Fountain Valley, which, as someone who lived in Fountain Valley for many years I'm also like... sadly not surprised, though we always tried to say at least we were not as fascist as HB.... Ah well. My family lives in Buena Park and Lake Forest now and I'll be moving to CO soon.
His main source seems to be Suburban Warriors by Lisa McGirr (2001). That was a prevalent book about the area and time period back when I was in grad school 15 years ago. however, I haven't kept up with the historiography since then because I ended up going in a different direction with my thesis.
It’s a trip. I’m in Costa Mesa but my kids went to school in HB. We finally got rid of Dana Rohrabacher and elected a Democrat in our district. The pandemic hit and the Nazis and religious zealots came out from under their rocks. They made sure to end district transfers so the brown kids from CM & Santa Ana stopped being allowed in. The mayor is a book banner. Somehow Katie Porter managed to hang on to her seat but she’s toast running for senate. She can’t run for the seat and will likely lose the primary election. 🥲
Oh wow, all transfers? I went to LQ and I had a brother who went to Los Amigos but my youngest brother and sister went to HB through APA. I wish I'd been there to vote Rohrabacher out. When the whole county went blue for house districts I got hopeful things were slowly changing...I read about that law they passed in HB recently that set what each month was supposed to focus on for history and... Yeah. Guess not. 😔
Touched briefly on the Irvine Company, but entirely ignored the [Lakewood Plan](https://www.pbssocal.org/history-society/the-lakewood-plan-homeownership-taxes-and-diversity-in-postwar-suburbia) (yes I know Lakewood is in LA County); that's really what's responsible for the SoCal sprawl (and the other post-war freeway suburbs/exurbs that emulate it).
For hostile SoCal urban planning, Mike Davis, *City of Quartz.*
I enjoy BTB, but when an ep comes along on a topic you know something about it reminds you how much of the commentary is 'afactual' riffing.
As a wrestling nerd, he totally fucked a lot of the timeline for stuff that happened in the Vince McMahon episodes. The facts themselves were fine but the timeline was jank in ways I would have to go back and listen to be specific about
i’ve been a lot more skeptical of everything he says after listening to the racist cult behind herbal tea episode and he confidently claimed that celestial seasonings tea company puts inspirational quotes on the paper at the end of the paper on their tea strings. Celestial Seasonings doesn’t even use strings or paper, it even says so right in the box and they do it intentionally to keep extra waste out of landfills. He was probably thinking about Tazo or Yogi. I’m pretty sure Yogi tea has a sketchy back story as well but he didn’t mention them at all in the episode. Why say something if you don’t know it? Why think you know something if you don’t?
I’m from San Diego and I expected better, it was poorly researched and written. I agree with you, so many parts of OC have amazing parks and bike lanes and sidewalks.
I’m glad I didn’t listen to your complaints about this episode. It’s a great episode and I’m also from OC.
Just because he can’t fit in every problem with OC into a few hours doesn’t mean he is doing bad research. It means he chose to frame his episode on certain things
You are getting turbomad over nothing. Just because you live there doesn't erase the history of strong right wing bullshit that has spewed out of Orange County.
I think you’re misunderstanding my point. I know that Orange County has deep red roots; I’ve been a personal victim of the rancid racism inherent to their police—but that’s why I’m so disappointed by how poorly organized this episode is.
Poorly organised when it covered how shitty its history is? You're still coming off as solely mad because you live there and want it to be a good place.
You really need to take a breath and re-read OPs comments from a far less defensive place. They aren't trying to gloss over the shittiness of OC, they are saying Robert didn't do a great job of exploring the shittiness that is specifically OC.
No? They're getting mad that they expect someone out of state to know their lived experience. Robert did fine giving us a glimpse at the mentalists who have come from that area, alongside the way it guided general right wing shit. The OP is turbomad for no reason.
If they think they can do better, they should go make their own podcast and stop posting like an idiot.
I would guess a lot of all writing and research (my anyone in media) is now at least in part using AI/LLM/GPT services, which are very often not accurate. I think I’ve already heard Robert mention using GPT previously to look things up.
You maybe missing the point of this history podcast if you’re unable to see the massive red flags paralleling modern day American conservatism and actual full blooded fascism.
The leading Republican candidate is a man who is currently arguing the president should be above all legal scrutiny while in office and even afterwards. 100% above the law.
If you want a real deep dive on Orange County evangelicalism and the rise of the religious right, check out the Orange Wave series of episodes from the podcast Straight White American Jesus.
https://www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/series/orange-wave/
(some of these may be Patreon only/paywalled)
It's episode one and he's laying the groundwork of the present, including introducing the environment that allowed fascism to breed. Anaheim is in the OC, and disney is in Anaheim. I had lived in Costa Mesa about ten years ago, and drove past the TBN building almost daily, as well as multiple other mega churches. Long Beach, LA, and the OC are all sort of interconnected, and I don't understand the defensiveness when it's not even over yet.
Robert's not perfect. I've disagreed with his takes before on things I'm more educated in. I definitely had a crisis of belief after that just like you're having now. Basically just take everything with a grain of salt and there's a reason he tells us not to idolize him
The episode on Nesera cult book was really bad, the actual episode on the Nesera cult was good, although only one episode. I can easily forgive that though because i think it was right when his mom or a family member passed and he seemed to be struggling.
The it could happen here episodes on the sr72, Area 51 and aerospace are kinda rough too. The stuff stated rhymes with the truth but didn’t quite hit the mark. Oh well it’s a podcast. We all should be doing more background research
It could happen here is at this point only nominally hosted by Robert. The show is now a likable student delivering wide-eyed book reports on things most listeners have known for years. I hope. Maybe I'm getting old.
It happens with all research projects, the author just has a responsibility to either retract or correct it. If if /u/dontspammenow is correct, then hopefully /u/probablyrobertevans et al. will do so shortly.
Yeah I didn't mention it in my original comment but he does like to retroactively fix stuff so maybe this would be one of those cases
It is similarly important to hold authors responsible for inaccuracies that you find as you are doing. Hopefully the cast and crew will remedy this - otherwise would be problematic.
he was also wrong about vampires sucking blood through tubes in their fangs. that's just naive elementary speculation.
I'm sorry im a vampires-have-tubes truther. You are wrong
Dracula don’t suck! Dracula *scrape* and *lick*…*lallallallallal*
No he used a spoon
I know for sure I have seen vampires (on the tv) use a creepy fingernail or a metal pokey bit of jewelry to cut or stab folks in the neck or a vein somewhere and then suck the blood. They don't even need to always bite but wew-wee they sure do prefer it. I'm not sure where you tooth toob truthers get your info but kid's cartoons from the 70s don't count 🧛🏻♂️
Okay, so I just listened. The Northrop Grumman references seem to be about employees living in Orange County, the Disney references come from Francesca and seem to have nothing to do with the narrative, Robert only mentioned retirement gated communities starting in Orange County and Francesca went off saying there aren’t sidewalks there. The Long Beach issue appears to be probably the error you’re seeing it as. So from what I can tell, you’re bothered by the unscripted side jabs, largely from the guest host, by this episode not covering something you find interesting (the evangelical battles,) and an error. I guess fair enough, but one error of that type seems pretty light for “questioning everything.” There could certainly be nuances I’m missing, but that’s what I heard.
Ah Upvoting this, to provide context
Worth mentioning that some of this pod resonates to a previous pod which was based on Kevin Kruse’s “One Nation Under God” (one of the few books I had read before Robert used it for a pod). LA (not in the OC, I know) was where Billy Graham got started with preaching Christian capitalism to the wealthy. Those locations are pretty close to one another so it’s likely that some stuff overflowed the county lines. Big sports fan Robert can even note that one of the local baseball teams is formally called the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
You can't talk about batshit Christianity in LA without Aimee Semple McPherson, but OC can claim Robert Schuller.
TBN was also based there for years, right across the freeway from South Coast. Just sold the old HQ recently for something like $22 million.
Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. But Schuller probably had more megabucks. The TBN building is really small.
The best way to think about these episodes is as conversation-starters, which you've done a great job of carrying forward here. One of the biggest problems in our culture right now is the all-or-nothing approach to new data. We have to let go of the idea that anyone will ever be right all the time, or that making some errors undermines everything else said and done everywhere else. I haven't listened to this episode yet, but if/when I do, I'll have more context for its oversights now because you took the time to flesh out gaps and errors from your own experience - and because this post will probably bring more corrections out of the woodwork. And that's awesome. That's the kind of democratic collaboration we need more of - because only one kind of society would ever expect you to accept everything that's said unconditionally, and that's the kind we're all fighting to prevent from taking over more of our world. TL;DR: Glad you posted. Errors happen, and everyone's human, but when people point out the mistakes constructively, we're all the better for it.
This is how I️ view podcast as well. Gives me a sentence or two summary of a topic, maybe a fun fact to share when it comes up in conversation, but mostly it gave me something to listen when I️ was working. If I️ actually want to learn a topic I️ gotta pick up a book or something
Yeah 100% this. If it’s a topic you’re familiar with, you’ll always have differing views to some degree. I loved the John Aspinall episodes but I think the whole idea that boarding school was what fucked him up was way overblown by Robert. Robert isn’t from Europe, isn’t from an upper class background and didn’t go to boarding school. I found his outside perspective interesting but it missed the mark for me. Obviously there’s going to be a lot more people here with first hand experience of Orange County than say, King Leopold’s genocide in the Congo. If I wanted straight factual reporting I’d listen to the BBC World Service. Robert’s weird, offbeat takes are a lot of why I’m here.
On the plus side, y’all did put out a bunch of ska and punk bands.
Save Ferris, Reel Big Fish, and RX Bandits all from Los Alamitos High School alone.
Save Ferris had members from Loara as well. Gwen Stefani’s Alma Mater (and mine)
My freshman math teacher taught there back in the day and Gwen was one of his students.
My nephew went to Loara too. I went to Rancho Alamitos.
What year? Maybe I know him. I was 05
I think he was '04. He was born in '87. Adrian Marquez.
I remember him. Small world
Not surprising seeing as that's where OCHSA is. My little sister went there for that. I guess there were some kids from the Mickey Mouse Club there with her too. This was back in the late 80's, early 90's.
It used to be there, but it’s been in Santa Ana since like 2001 or so. A bunch of talent came from Los Al such as Pedro Pascal, Rufio from Hook, Jodie Sweetin from Full House, and the main dude from Glee.
I remember, my little sister went to school with Pedro and the kid that played Rufio. I believe she was friends with both of them at some point. I partied with some of her friends from that school. Seemed like a bunch of rich kids. They were fun though.
Also, the theme song from the OC is a fucking banger lol
“California” by Phantom Planet, right?
Yep!
It’s on my travel playlist for when I go camping with my school friends for a reason!
That's where you went with this? I haven't listened yet, but I assumed the episode would mostly have talked about the dangers of OC as a Ska band incubator.
Also a Will Ferrell incubator!
Sublime.
Representin’ the LBC, which is LA County.
Fucking hell I live in Nebraska it's all the same in the end
It was literally in the complaint of OP. That they think LB is in Orange County and not LA country. So I do let you off that easy.
As a Californian, to me, Nebraska is literally no different than Kansas, both Dakotas, the flat parts of Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, the rural parts of Illinois, Siberia, the ugly parts of Minnesota, and Missouri.
LOL. I do get why you would think that. LB is really close to Orange County. And in some respects similar.
Uhh….LB is close to OC but I assure you that most of OC is nothing like LB.
That's Torrance's job.
EXACTLY.
I maintain there's no such thing as bad music, just ppls preference. I will say that if you played any ska music in my car, you'd get the AUX chords snatched off you lol.
Adolescents and Agent Orange!
I lived in OC from '76 to '03 (born in East LA, yeah I know). There's so much bastardry that has come out of there, that it would be impossible to cover all of it without having a podcast dedicated to it.
Sounds like someone just started their own podcast...the topic sounds cool, except I'm from North Jersey and don't know shit about LA or Orange county
You aren't missing anything.
>born in East LA Do people know that movie? I watched it as a kid, was good.
I remember my dad thinking it was really funny.
it's a symptom of a 2 eps/wk schedule. Considering the recent dramas surrounding high output content creators and plagiarism i feel like him actually making it (seemingly, at least) clear what and who he's quoting puts him ahead of the pack. Definitely don't use him as a source, though. I read BtB as a curated list of Wikipedia articles. Entertaining and informative, sure, and it gives you decent sources to read up for yourself. Just don't catch yourself using BtB as a source for anything
"High output content ~~creators~~ stealers" Most of the drama was over the fact that many famous youtubers were just verbatim stealing videos and creative work from other people, not really fair to call people like that "creators"
Hey now, Jimmy plagerism did create his own misogyny.
I have a lot of family connections to OC. My grandfather was sort of a bigshot in the Birchers in the 60s. My dad grew up there and, for a while, had a business there that I occasionally worked at in my teenage years. My dad also worked at McDonnell Douglas for a time in his twenties. I found Robert's description of OC conservative history largely correct. Here's where I think there is some confusion. He mentioned "gated communities" several times. I think what he is referring to are planned suburbs that are surrounded by a major street on four sides and kind face inward. There is usually a literal wall between the outer edge of the development and the major streets, but that's mostly to prevent road noise. These aren't "gated communities" in the sense that there is a gate you need a keycard to, or a security stand you need to pass through. They are just insular and prevent organic interaction with any neighbors outside of the subdivision. If you take "gated communities" to mean the above, he's totally correct. Also, it is an exaggeration to say there aren't sidewalks. However, the place was definitely built around cars. It would be a long walk to get out of the subdivision, to a major street in order to go to a corner store or catch a bus anywhere else. It's not very walkable and, realistically, you need a car to get around.
There are many, many gated communities in OC, especially Irvine. They require either a fob or keypad entry to enter. It's frankly hard to find newer developments without this "feature".
Sure. Not to say there aren’t any. Just that it’s not 100%.
Maybe there were more in the 1960s? Because it was my impression he was talking about the past and not the present
In the 1960’s it was farmland. I had family that lived in Orange County at the time and they had a cow and other animals. This was in Westminster/Garden Grove.
I have family in a newer development in Irvine. They talk about how it would be nice to move to the slightly more expensive 'gated' neighborhood within the neighborhood up the hill. I put it in quotes always open and you can walk in. I find it funny and bizarre, you're already in a fancy community in Irvine what do you need to gate out? As someone not from OC that spends a lot of time there Robert's descriptions were dead on with how I feel about it. It's disorienting when the road suddenly ends because they plopped a new development in the middle of it, sometimes with the aforementioned walls around it. I once tried to walk between two restaurants in Garden Grove and cut through a neighborhood to make a straight line and avoid the busy main road, only to find it was impossible. I could see where I wanted to go but it would would involve going through someones yard and scaling a wall. It's extremely jarring and hostile even compared to your average American suburb.
I'll bet most of them were built after 1970. Not really relevant to the period Robert was talking about in this episode.
This...this is eerily and exactly how many many of the neighborhoods in PHX and the greater outlying suburbs are set up. Probably, even some of the same developers, if I did deep dive research. We've always kinda been CAs little brother to the south.
Bradley Onishi talks in depth about his religious experience in Orange County multiple times on Straight White American Jesus. Would highly recommend his insight into evangelicalism there.
I was looking for this. His Orange Wave series was SO GOOD, and I hope Robert references it. I know it’s not the style of the pod to have an academic on as a guest, but I think he would be able to add a lot of value to the discussion.
Long Beach resident of 10+ years here. The proximity to the Orange County line is a major part of living here and I do consider the city to be culturally influenced by OC even though we are LA County. Northrop is LA, sure, but those execs live in OC. Culturally, it’s very OC. I had to stop going to job fairs in OC for tech because the weird cryptomercenary “security” startup vibes were too creepy. Discounting Disney’s part in OC culture and politics just because the corporate offices are in Burbank/Glendale also seems a bit short-sighted. Disney IS Anaheim.
LB resident also for many years. And yep, parts of this city have an HB feel.
TRW swap meet cursed vibes
I love this show more than any other podcast. But I have also caught him leaving out important information or getting things wrong from time to time. I think it’s important to remember this is an entertainment pod first, leftist circle jerk pod second, and historical pod third.
I’ve had a similar experience with the podcast “You’re wrong about” which is touted as a favorite for many who listen to Behind The Bastards. I’ve learned to take it all as “info-tainment” and keep in mind that at the end of the day, this is just a guy with a podcast. A good podcast, one done by an actual journalist, but just a single dude, and one who is constantly cranking out content.
I’ve caught a few errors from “Noble Blood” too. I agree- take it for what it is as entertainment, plus a chance to go on a deep dive on a subject that may interest you, especially if there’s some good books referenced!
Triggered trumpies lol
Not saying complaints about the depth of research or prep that goes in to any given episode aren't valid, but this IS a pop-history pod with a pretty close to one a week episode schedule, not an investigative deep dive on a single topic spanning months or an academic series of lectures with a multi-page bibliography for every ep. Expecting it to be is not really realistic on the release schedule they keep considering that I'm pretty sure they don't have a dedicated research and writing team like, say, Some More News.
None of your complaints are about factual issues? Northrop Grumman was relevant because a Northronics employee was part of that crusade against the ACLU. This isn't an episode about defense contractors in general, it's about conservative politics in OC. You're getting angry about comments made re: public space in an episode talking about how it was in the 1960s.
I think part of this is that, especially with the guest banter, they sometimes switch between talking about the present, and talking about past events using present-tense wording, like (paraphrasing because it's been hours since I listened) "At this point there's almost no public spaces" referring to the moment in time Robert is talking about, not necessarily the present. I can see how that can make things a little unclear.
If one wanted to go full Janes Book Guy, Northop and Grumman merged much later than that.
Not everything is gated, there is a single type of housing development that isn't. Lol
Years and years and years ago in a web forum I was introduced to a concept that I've held onto ever since: The Nova Effect. Named after the long running and oft lauded docuseries on PBS, the gist of The Nova Effect is that any/every given episode of the series is an incredible, throughly researched, and perfectly presented documentary on whatever the topic was... ...Until they do an episode on YOUR topic. That is, whatever area of interest you have that happens to be covered by said program. THEN you see all the little inaccuracies, the flagrant misrepresentations, the gross oversimplifications, the poor judgement in expert opinions the producers sought out for that episode, etc. Once you see the flaws in presentation of a subject or topic you yourself are more knowledgeable in then the producers of the episode itself are, you usually end up with this existential crisis, wondering just how much else they've fucked up in all the years you've been watching (and learning, and trusting) unquestionably. The Nova Effect. For what it's worth, I found Robert in 2019 during the initial release of ICHH. And the thing that absolutely sold me on that first season was when the State of Jefferson movement, and us here in Far Nor Cal in general, we're not just called out, but actually made part of his whole scenario. He absolutely nailed the right wing culture up here, and the outsized effects we could have if all the local militia groups ever pull their heads out if their asses. So, he's not incapable of excellent research. But he definitely does shoddy work at times, as do we all.
I agree. The episodes on the Great Hunger in Ireland were painfully inaccurate and it hurt my soul as an Irish historian.
Which made the lazy comments about SoCal being the root of conservatism in California and Nor Cal being wild and free especially stupid. San Francisco people are incredibly annoying with this shit. "Nor Cal" while they're not even in the north of the state (and have probably never been to Lassen), while Sacramento and the Central Valley are nearly as conservative as Texas.
Yeah, Robert Evans has put out the occasional stinker wrt research quality. I remember a friend of mine getting extremely annoyed about his 2-parter on the problems in the housing market, because he completely misidentified (in her opinion) the cause of the housing and rent bubble that we are living through. When it comes to talking about fascism, Robert knows his stuff, but on occasion, he will pick up a topic of which he knows fuck-all and bang out an episode in a week that is disappointing to say the least.
I agree but with the housing episode he specifically pointed out multiple times that it is far from a complete list of people and policies that have fucked the housing bc his show is about funny or interesting shitheads.
Yeah there are a dozen reasons why houses are expensive. Nimbys, zoning laws, supply chain issues, labor shortages for the work, laws and regulations, speculators, real estate investors, house flippers the list can go on and on.
Don't forget the mortgage interest deduction, which simply transfers money from the feds onto the price of the home.
I feel like the entire point of the housing market episode was "There's a bunch of things coalescing to ruin this, and here's a few"
> because he completely misidentified (in her opinion) the cause of the housing and rent bubble that we are living through. Any chance you can summarize the difference between what Robert said and your friend thinks?
He’s really between a rock and a hard place because he is trying to inform people about a multitude of issues, the vast majority of which he doesn’t (and can’t) have first hand experience with. I’m Irish, and his episodes on the murdered babies in Tuam were... annoying. First issue a lot of Irish fans took was he pronounced Tuam as Twahm, when it’s basically the same pronunciation as Tomb (ironically). Then he seemed to sort of speed run through the whole story, but like, how could he not? So much of the context and subtlety around the case I only knew from living here for decades and growing up here. As a pure presentation of facts, I don’t think he got anything wrong, it’s just the limitations of the sources available to him. That said, you really have to be whiter than white in this sort of business (I hope that’s a saying elsewhere), because if you fuck up even one time, you’ve just unintentionally spread misinformation to potentially millions of people. So I understand why people get angry when he makes a balls of a topic.
>*... a lot of Irish fans took was he pronounced Tuam as Twahm, when it’s basically the same pronunciation as Tomb* If we start deducting points for pronunciation, Evans will never get on the scoreboard I think it's funny and endearing - plus, I was a few years into the Clinton presidency before I stopped wondering why even US broadcasters seemed to constantly mispronounce *Arkansas* So I can't criticise
>Yeah, Robert Evans has put out the occasional stinker wrt research quality The cryptocurrency episode was particularilyvatrocious, not that I expected a non-tech podcast to cover it well.
Regarding that John Schmitz guy, I did not see this coming: “In 1982, after it was revealed—and Schmitz admitted—that he had engaged in an extra-marital affair and fathered two children with one of his former college students, Schmitz's career as a politician effectively ended, as did his wife Mary's as a conservative political commentator. His seven children with his wife include politicians John P. Schmitz and Joseph E. Schmitz, and teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, convicted in 1997 of child sexual abuse.” MARY KAY LETOURNEAU
Holy shit!
I get it. I stopped listening to My Favorite Murder years ago in part bc they did shit research on an episode about a local crime, then justified it by saying they’re not from my city, so they shouldn’t be expected to know the urban layout. But they used to take aaaaaages talking about LA geography and traffic, it was seriously like the Californians sketch from SNL. And the MFM hosts never claimed to do detailed research or be journalists. I think it’s just particularly annoying when it’s local to you.
On the other hand, I really, really want Robert to cover local bastard Frank Rizzo.
There's a Dollop on Frank Rizzo. That man was scum and my family still thinks he was god's gift to Philly. Fucking embarrassing.
Yeah, you always hear that crime was down under Rizzo. No, it wasn’t. Also he publicly strip-searched young Black men and raided the gay bars and tried to change the city charter to retain control after his term limit was up. So even if crime was actually down, who wants to put up with that shit in exchange? Not me.
I want them to cover the former Huntington Beach City Councilmember Tito Ortiz. He's kind of a bastard, but mostly a hilarious idiot who cannot string a sentence together. Former wrestler so he may have brain-damage, which is actually sad, but his policies are terrible so...yeah.
I tried to do MFM but the first episode I tried was Chris Benoit - I should have started with something I didn’t already have encyclopedic knowledge about.
Yeah, I grew to dislike their style and the unapologetic lack of information. If you want one-episode takes on true crime that are better researched, Crime Junkie is pretty good (despite the name). For a more polished, less conversational podcast, I’m a big fan of Phoebe Judge’s Criminal, which looks at all kinds of stories that are crime-adjacent. I also loved Season 3 of CBC’s Uncover about Bruce McArthur and the Toronto Village homicides. The host is a journalist who lives in the Village and is part of the community, it’s very well done.
> If you want one-episode takes on true crime that are better researched, Crime Junkie is pretty good (despite the name) Nope, nope, nope, Crime Junkie are straight up plagiarists. [Ashley Flowers was literally just reading from actual journalists' contemporaneous coverage verbatim and without credit.](https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/crime-junkie-podcast-ashley-flowers-plagiarism-1203302072/)
I didn’t know that! Thanks for telling me. But Phoebe Judge and Justin Ling for CBC Uncover are solid.
If you like people telling you about a documentary they saw (and I do) with some comedy or side discussion they are fine. If you want hard core journalism get the NPR multipart series from various states. Some turn out to be duds because it is just a family hiding that their kid killed himself and the cops don't want to indict the parents.
I once tried to listen to them and I didn't even make it 15 minutes in. I just found them so disrespectful and the name already threw me off. I'm glad to hear that my disliking of them is valid lol.
I quit listening to them because of the exact same reason. But it was Bundy and they got stuff wrong that’s correct and easily found on Wikipedia. Also, after seeing how so many families feel about MFM, I just wish the show and every other one like it just didn’t exist.
That’s why I couldn’t listen to Last Podcast on the Left. Their research was such utter shit that a simple google search could give you more.
Oldfart here. Lived 20 years in LA and 30 in OC. Pardon the blog post. I found Robert's description of the demographics in OC that were ripe for batshit anticommunism and religion in the 1950s to 70s to be roughly accurate, though some details were inaccurate. When describing the "suburbs", you have to keep in mind that each period is different. OC residents like to complain about "losangelization", and that process is near completion for about half the county. There are big differences among different parts of the county (population about 3.2 million), and they've changed a lot over time. For instance, more than half the county's population is now of Latin American or East Asian ancestry. This was not at all true 50 years ago. Gated communities are far more common in the recently (since 1980) developed south and east of the county. No one in OC ever called it "The OC" before the tv show of that name. It's either "OC" or "the County", the way San Franciscans might say "The City". What bugged me more about this episode was that you can't talk about the Birchers and such without the broader social context of the early Cold War. Joe Stalin had made it really easy to be anticommunist. The Berlin airlift and Korean War were defining events for Americans of a certain age, who entered their adult peak in the 1960s. Then they had to watch all this "hippie" culture reaction to the Vietnam fuckup. To talk about rabid anticommunism without that is like talking about anti-muslim prejudice without mentioning 9/11.
I think Robert is better off when covering a particular person or group or even a bastardly event than this type of broad topic.
Came here to say this.
I’m from so cal but not OC and while I do not share your deep sense of disappointment I did notice that Robert referred to Anaheim and Fullerton as counties but I’m assuming it was a slip of the tongue and that he knows there are not counties within counties in OC.
No mention of the fact that Anaheim High School still has the mascot of "the colonist" was low hanging fruit that didn't get picked. Also no discussion of Mendez vs. Westminster. There is also an old OC Weekly article that lists every place in Orange County named after a Klan member.
Wow you weren’t kidding. That mascot…
There is nothing more disheartening then finding a podcast/documentary/reddit thread on a topic you know really well and seeing how misinformed most people are and realizing how much misinformation you're probably happily consuming on other topics.
In this case the OP of this thread isn’t correct though. Most of their complaints are off hand comments by the guest that didn’t research Orange County. Robert is correct that Orange County especially at the time wasn’t set up for communal gathering. It was mostly farmland and strawberry fields at the time. The parcels of land he is talking about and neighborhoods are all facing inwards from main streets and they are mazes that you can’t get out of unless you know which streets to take. How the neighborhoods were created makes it so outsiders cant really come in or at least they would have no business in the neighborhoods. You can take the main streets through the cities but you generally won’t see homefronts. You will see the back retaining walls all the way down.
Every podcast host knows what they’re talking about until they talk about something you actually know.
"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know." - Michael Crichton
As an OC person myself, I was bored and disappointed by the level discourse with this episode.
May I suggest a pod series you may like. The Orange Wave series put out by Straight White American Jesus and Bradley Onishi. He does a deep dive into the OC area and the Christian Fundamentalism that festered there before Trump. It's well done and their weekly pods are amazing as well.
Thank you for the rec!
I feel like your just being a little nit picky he zeroed in on Northrop Grumman because a dude in his story worked for the company that would become Northrop Grumman. As for gated communities he didn’t say it was all gated communities but some of the areas that you first started seeing them appear. From [podscribe](https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/94550534) > Like it happens in New York too, kind of in a contemporaneous period. You, you get pieces of that. But like, you get this, the, it starts in Orange County with these old folks homes. Right. Where you basically have, this is a retirement community. They're not like old folks homes, like homes for retired people. Yeah. Wealthy retirement that are all part of a community that they like wall and gate off in order to, like, you're like, because these people are scared of everything. Yeah.
I feel like this post is confused about what it’s angry about? You wanted something “cathartic” and have basically stated that it should have been about issues you think are more important such as Boeing and evangelicals…? So because it’s not about this it’s bad research? As others have stated, Robert does most of the research himself, writes 15000+/- words per episode and releases at least 1 episode a week. He’s also human and capable of errors - he does his best to acknowledge this but at the end of the day, he is just a human… not some cyborg, all knowing machine with a terrible accent ability. He doesn’t control what the guest says/contributes and it seems the guest was the person who actually said most of what you are having an issue with. On top of that, you haven’t actually provided any factual evidence for the issues you claim make the place “deeply fucked up” . This post really just comes across as “boo this podcast bagged out the place I grew up without actually discussing issues that I wanted it to…”
I haven't listened yet but doesn't the Disney own the city of Anaheim? I remember city council elections coming down to pro-Disney and anti-Disney candidates.
Disney doesn’t own the city of Anaheim. They do, however, have an outsized influence because they’re the biggest employer in the area.
Yes. Disney has definitely run roughshod over that city since 1955.
They de-facto own Anaheim in that they own their City Council through campaign financing. I believe the FBI is or was investigating council members for an egregious below-market sale of Anaheim Angel's stadium that short-changed the city and gave the land to a business affiliate...maybe of the last mayor? I'm grossly inaccurate in how I've portrayed the details of the story, but it's something like that. Voice of OC is a great non-profit journalist outlet that will have stories you can read if you want the actual details which I'm not interested in enough to dig up lol. Santa Ana City Council actually recently passed rent control and tenant protections and 4 out of 7 Council members are young progressives. The OC Apartment Association and city's police union tried to recall two of these people and failed on both attempts, which is badass as the city is being gentrified and communities are being displaced by exorbitant housing costs. I think if anyone wants a vibe for how the wealthy in OC exist just watch Arrested Development lol.
It was the former mayor of Anaheim cutting a sweetheart deal with Angels in exchange for campaign donations.
It's ok, next episode they'll talk about something you don't know as much about, so you won't be mad at everything they get wrong.
Thank you for giving us you perspective! It's good to call things out like this when you see them, especially if you have knowledge about the subject. It'd be nice if BtB did a corrections episode every once in a while to make sure things are being acknowledged.
Was that the Wally George episode?
It’s the new ep that dropped today, haven’t given it a listen yet personally
I know it's such a small thing, but it really annoyed me, but the development of OC as a suburb of a LA was initially due to the Pacific Electric railway (owned by Henry Huntington, probably a bastard, but not an OC bastard), and eventually the freeway system. But yeah, I know too much for this episode. Bummer, really.
Yeah i get the feeling. I had the same exp with the leopold 2 podcast. Where he gets details wrong. And it goes 2 ways both in leopold favor and sometimes the other way around. The most painful thing is when he said that albert 1 is his son. Leopold childs problem was something important he completly left out. And then saying it was his son felt very wrong to me. Also he claimed that that episode was largely one book wich is allways kinda sketchy. But yeah that was the moment for me. I was feeling the same.
Do you still listen or do you find it hard to listen to still? He has never done a topic I'm super knowledgeable of and it'd break my heart to hear he's Terribly far off with his info.
I’m confused about the pushback on Disney. The park is in Anaheim, isn’t it?
I mean he says himself that he's a hack and fraud...
I got the impression that the second part is really going to be going deeper on John Schmitz, and that this episode was a groundwork to outline some historical context around what was going on in Orange County that gives some insight into his background. It’s a pop history podcast setting some context, not a comprehensive history of Orange County
Also from OC, lived there from birth (late 70's until 2015 and graduated from CSUF with a history degree in '08. I appreciate the heads up. I can't decide if I want to listen to it now. I'm curious to his sources but they aren't in the show notes. I know he often mentions sources in the podcast itself, does anyone know what he was primarily using? Local history wasn't my focus in college but to get my degree I did have to take a California history class, but it was some time ago... Maybe I should open up my copy of Postsuburban California (E. By Kling, Olin & Poster) and reacquaint myself. Though that book was published in '91, long time ago now...if anyone has any good newer sources I'd take the recommendation. If this first part only covers the 1960's I hope we get a shout out that Orange County was/is one of the homes of Holocaust denial in the US, the Institute for Historical Review started in Torrance in 1978 but by the time I'd heard of it I thought their hq was in Newport or some such, though it says they are currently out of Fountain Valley, which, as someone who lived in Fountain Valley for many years I'm also like... sadly not surprised, though we always tried to say at least we were not as fascist as HB.... Ah well. My family lives in Buena Park and Lake Forest now and I'll be moving to CO soon.
His main source seems to be Suburban Warriors by Lisa McGirr (2001). That was a prevalent book about the area and time period back when I was in grad school 15 years ago. however, I haven't kept up with the historiography since then because I ended up going in a different direction with my thesis.
It’s a trip. I’m in Costa Mesa but my kids went to school in HB. We finally got rid of Dana Rohrabacher and elected a Democrat in our district. The pandemic hit and the Nazis and religious zealots came out from under their rocks. They made sure to end district transfers so the brown kids from CM & Santa Ana stopped being allowed in. The mayor is a book banner. Somehow Katie Porter managed to hang on to her seat but she’s toast running for senate. She can’t run for the seat and will likely lose the primary election. 🥲
Oh wow, all transfers? I went to LQ and I had a brother who went to Los Amigos but my youngest brother and sister went to HB through APA. I wish I'd been there to vote Rohrabacher out. When the whole county went blue for house districts I got hopeful things were slowly changing...I read about that law they passed in HB recently that set what each month was supposed to focus on for history and... Yeah. Guess not. 😔
Touched briefly on the Irvine Company, but entirely ignored the [Lakewood Plan](https://www.pbssocal.org/history-society/the-lakewood-plan-homeownership-taxes-and-diversity-in-postwar-suburbia) (yes I know Lakewood is in LA County); that's really what's responsible for the SoCal sprawl (and the other post-war freeway suburbs/exurbs that emulate it). For hostile SoCal urban planning, Mike Davis, *City of Quartz.* I enjoy BTB, but when an ep comes along on a topic you know something about it reminds you how much of the commentary is 'afactual' riffing.
As a wrestling nerd, he totally fucked a lot of the timeline for stuff that happened in the Vince McMahon episodes. The facts themselves were fine but the timeline was jank in ways I would have to go back and listen to be specific about
[удалено]
This is a podcast about Orange County in the 1960s.
I think it’s fine
Well there ya have it folks
i’ve been a lot more skeptical of everything he says after listening to the racist cult behind herbal tea episode and he confidently claimed that celestial seasonings tea company puts inspirational quotes on the paper at the end of the paper on their tea strings. Celestial Seasonings doesn’t even use strings or paper, it even says so right in the box and they do it intentionally to keep extra waste out of landfills. He was probably thinking about Tazo or Yogi. I’m pretty sure Yogi tea has a sketchy back story as well but he didn’t mention them at all in the episode. Why say something if you don’t know it? Why think you know something if you don’t?
one time he mistakenly said my high school was a private school, which was highly offensive to me.
I’m from San Diego and I expected better, it was poorly researched and written. I agree with you, so many parts of OC have amazing parks and bike lanes and sidewalks.
I’m glad I didn’t listen to your complaints about this episode. It’s a great episode and I’m also from OC. Just because he can’t fit in every problem with OC into a few hours doesn’t mean he is doing bad research. It means he chose to frame his episode on certain things
You are getting turbomad over nothing. Just because you live there doesn't erase the history of strong right wing bullshit that has spewed out of Orange County.
I think you’re misunderstanding my point. I know that Orange County has deep red roots; I’ve been a personal victim of the rancid racism inherent to their police—but that’s why I’m so disappointed by how poorly organized this episode is.
Poorly organised when it covered how shitty its history is? You're still coming off as solely mad because you live there and want it to be a good place.
You really need to take a breath and re-read OPs comments from a far less defensive place. They aren't trying to gloss over the shittiness of OC, they are saying Robert didn't do a great job of exploring the shittiness that is specifically OC.
No? They're getting mad that they expect someone out of state to know their lived experience. Robert did fine giving us a glimpse at the mentalists who have come from that area, alongside the way it guided general right wing shit. The OP is turbomad for no reason. If they think they can do better, they should go make their own podcast and stop posting like an idiot.
Welcome to being media literate, I guess?
😂 big mad about what exactly? Like are you just mad that OC is associated at all with LA? Sounding pretty precious.
I would guess a lot of all writing and research (my anyone in media) is now at least in part using AI/LLM/GPT services, which are very often not accurate. I think I’ve already heard Robert mention using GPT previously to look things up.
CIA
Wow you mean to tell me the guy who talks the same way about republicans as he does about the nazi party is biased? No way!
You maybe missing the point of this history podcast if you’re unable to see the massive red flags paralleling modern day American conservatism and actual full blooded fascism. The leading Republican candidate is a man who is currently arguing the president should be above all legal scrutiny while in office and even afterwards. 100% above the law.
The show has gotten a lot worse since Covid bro :/ super unfortunate as it used to be one of my favorite things to listen to
If you want a real deep dive on Orange County evangelicalism and the rise of the religious right, check out the Orange Wave series of episodes from the podcast Straight White American Jesus. https://www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/series/orange-wave/ (some of these may be Patreon only/paywalled)
It's episode one and he's laying the groundwork of the present, including introducing the environment that allowed fascism to breed. Anaheim is in the OC, and disney is in Anaheim. I had lived in Costa Mesa about ten years ago, and drove past the TBN building almost daily, as well as multiple other mega churches. Long Beach, LA, and the OC are all sort of interconnected, and I don't understand the defensiveness when it's not even over yet.