Transcript: Bill Maher Interviews Aidan Walker 9/26/25
Walker
I am a meme researcher. I started out-
Maher
Look, see, already we're lost.
Maher
Am I right, o- older people? Older- this is why I want you here, because we've had these shootings, another terrible one this week. The, uh, guy shot the, uh, he tried to kill ICE people, I guess. He killed a detainee. But, uh, we had the horrible one, uh, Tyler Robinson. We need someone to explain what's in the minds of these people. So just tell me, first of all, what is meme researcher?
Walker
So, a meme is something you might look at on your phone bill, or on your-
Maher
Oh, I know that much.
Walker
... laptop, if you prefer.
Walker
Um, but what I do is I look at w- how they originated, how they spread, and what they mean. A meme is a historical document, like a poem, like a painting, like an article in the newspaper, and I trace their trajectories, their spread, and I try to figure out what they say about us and about society.
Maher
But they take on new meanings. I mean, this is part of why people get inspired to kill, because they get insulted by them, right? They get hurt by them. They, they have a, a meaning that a lot of us older people are not getting, correct?
Walker
Yes. Memes are really interactive. They mean something different to everybody who manipulates and uses them. And in the case of these horrible acts of violence, where the meme angle kind of comes in, is that, like what we saw with the young man who, you know, shot Charlie Kirk, engraved on those bullet casings were memes. And so, my theory is that one way to read that is to say it's a shit post. Um, it's a nihilistic kind of attempt to draw attention to himself, uh, and also to call into question the entire world that older people live in.
Walker
You know, it's a big "Fuck you" to everybody from law enforcement to a journalist to the regular person reading it in the newspaper.
Maher
Yeah, this is what I was saying last week, and this is where I differ from Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel was placing someone, uh, the ki- placing the killer on a team. I think that was his mistake. I don't think he should be thrown off the air for it. I don't think he was deliberately lying. I just think he's in a ideological bubble, so that's who- that was not what I said. I said what you said, "It's nihilistic." Politics is part of it, but it's just politics, they're using it to f- somehow help them act out their anger.
Maher
Let's, let's talk about the ICE killer this week, because I read what his friends said about him, and they kept saying, "He really wasn't political." And they, uh, they doubt whether he was that upset about ICE and what they were doing. Now, he made some good points about ICE. So did the Unabom- Unabomber make some good points. But I got the feeling that if he had gotta have gotten laid, he wouldn't have cared about ICE-
Maher
... so much.
Walker
Mm-hmm.
Maher
Is that true?
Walker
So, politics is never the only thing that's going on-
Maher
Right.
Walker
... inside of peoples' brains. And I think one of the things that's happening in this country and in many others is you have a lot of especially young people who don't see a future for themselves, who feel lonely, who feel alienated, and they congregate in these spaces sort of outside of the mainstream where they feel like that online world is more important than their real world. I mean, it's an experience so many people have that, you know, you work a shitty job that you hate, or you're sitting there trying to get a job and you can't get one no matter how qualified you are. But you can pull out your phone and you have infinity right there.
Walker
You can look at knowledge that you used to have to go, like, scan microfiche to look at. You can look at the craziest videos online. Um, and you can be anyone you wanna be. You can put on any mask. You can posture as a tough guy. You can posture as somebody who's brilliant and smart. And real life just e- keeps narrowing all around you, um, in this context of crisis that we're all living through, especially young people. Um, many go to the phone. And I think that there will always be a certain number of people who, um, can't get laid. Not all of them go on to commit acts of...
Walker
Most of them don't commit acts of violence, but some will be demented and twisted. And if this is how the system is set up, this is the slot people are gonna go into.
Maher
Well, I, I, there certainly were always people who couldn't get laid, me in college.
Walker
Am I getting a little...(laughs)
Maher
Uh, uh, it's okay. That's all right. Uh...(laughs) I made up for it.
(Audience)
Woo! Woo!
Maher
It's okay. All right. Uh... But I read that this ICE killer spent 10,000 hours so far on, playing video games. Okay, 10,000 hours. That of course rang in my head because of the famous, I guess, is that a meme, that Malcolm Gladwell said, "10,000 hours." We all know that number because he, uh, he wrote a famous essay. People w- if you wanna do something in your life, you gotta put in your 10,000 hours. You wanna learn to play the guitar, 10,000 hours.
Maher
Whatever it is, it's, you've got to put in... I thought, and this guy wanted to be a stand-up comedian. He tried. I thought, well, you know, if you'd put in your 10,000 hours doing that inspla- instead of playing stupid fucking video games, maybe you wouldn't be in the place you're in. And you-
Maher
And you talk about what the, you know, the phone and, and, uh, i- interacting, media, all that stuff, what it can do for you. Talk a little bit more about what it can do against you, because I saw this movie, a lot of people did, it was a water cooler movie on Netflix, a series called Adolescence. And it's about a kid, I'm gonna give the spoiler alert because it's been out a year. If you haven't seen it, too fucking bad.
Maher
But, you know, an adolescent, he's very young, 13, 14, he kills a girl. Okay? And they can't figure out if he did it or not. That's not really what the whodunit is. The whodunit is, why? And he did do it. And the, the adults can't even figure out what the motivation is until a kid explains to them, "Okay, this is the..." Uh, show some of the, the, um, emojis that were upsetting this kid. Okay, the red pill.Again, this is all this world you're talking about that we just don't ...
Maher
They don't want us to understand and we don't. But, we're gonna get to it tonight. The red pill, right? That's one. That means ... What does that mean, the red pill?
Walker
So, the red pill is a meme that emerges from The Matrix, which is from the '90s.
Maher
Right.
Walker
Um, in that movie, you know, you're offered the blue pill and the red pill, and Keanu Reeves takes the red pill to break out of his dream.
Maher
But what does it mean today when people see it? It means?
Walker
So what it means is if you take the red pill, then you've broken out of what they call kind of the oppressive reality of like, you know, mainstream society, of respecting people who are different from you, of, you know, believing that games that we play in life are fair. And so, for them, taking the red pill means like being one of them, being one of these incels outside of the way that most of us do business and conduct ourselves.
Maher
Okay. And then there was one, it was dynamite.
Walker
Explosion.
Maher
Okay. Well it ... But that has an alternative meaning. That doesn't, doesn't just mean dynamite. Somehow that is a taunt to people who can't get laid also. And then there was the 100. I mean, this is just what I'm reading, which, uh, apparently means something about you're always not gonna be able to get laid.
Walker
Yeah. So the 100, in Adolescence, which is a fictional TV show but is based on a number of real life stories, that sort of this, uh, this incel idea of like the 80/20 rule, you know, that, um, 80% of women want 20% of men.
Maher
That's right. Yeah.
Walker
But a lot of these memes have other meanings. Like the red 100 is also, you know, keeping it 100. Like, all of these sort of have many different levels they work across. And one way to read it is like in that show, where the emojis or the memes form this kind of code that adults can't read, in a way it's a little bit like a dog whistle with a lot of these memes, where they're so ironic, they're so layered in, you know, "I don't really mean this, but I can kinda hide behind it," that you can put the, the sort of antisocial or hateful idea behind that.
Maher
Yes. I mean, one could say that s- certainly what I'm reading about the Ice Killer the- this week, he was almost murdering ironically.
Walker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Maher
I mean, that's a place society has never been. Yes. Uh, young men certainly are bad and fumbly trying to get women to agree to what they wanna do. But it was never like this. We never had the term incel. Incel stands for involuntary celib- involuntarily celibate. And they blame the women. I never blamed the women. I knew it was I who was lame.
Maher
Um, I'm ... And this guy was into furries. The, Tyler Robinson was into furries, which, uh, uh, apparently is ... What the fuck is it?
Maher
What, what, what is furries? What?
Walker
So it's a lot like s- major team sports mascots. Uh, it's people who dress up as animals and go to conventions, and sometimes there is a romantic component.
Maher
He was having a romantic opponent with his transing lover, right? Tyler was? The-
Walker
We don't know anything for sure. There's a lot of people saying a lot on very little primary source evidence.
Maher
Okay. But do you think that kids today, one of the reasons why they're having so much trouble sexually is that the adults have confused them? I mean, when I was in school, I mean, homosexuality wasn't even discussed very much. I mean, we knew it, and I didn't think that adults were particularly against it. It just wasn't brought up. And certainly nobody ever suggested to me I might be in the wrong body. Now I'm not saying there aren't people who aren't, uh, uh, in, in need of transing. It, uh, I think it's rare, but they are.
Maher
But I feel like they put it out in the schools so much that maybe it had a ill effect. Do you think there's any truth to that?
Walker
I think that when you were a kid and that was the situation, it led to a whole lot of problems too, but we didn't talk about them.
Maher
Like?
Walker
Like people who are unable to be their full selves.
Maher
Yeah.
Walker
And I think that online or off-
Maher
That's true.
Walker
... everybody should have a chance to be who they are in America, and receive respect and dignity.
Maher
So you think they're doing the right amount?
Walker
I'm sorry?
Maher
Say we're doing the right amount in schools.
Walker
Well, I'm not an educator, Bill.
Maher
Yeah.
Walker
I talk about memes on the internet.
Walker
And y- and, and you aren't an educator either. You have a TV show.
Maher
Well, fuck you.
Walker
That's not how I'm thinking.
Maher
Uh ... I think a lot of people would say I've educated them on a lot of subjects. And I think this-
Walker
I've, I've been educated by you too. I watched this when I was a kid.
Maher
Oh, great. Uh, okay. Well, let's not fight.
Maher
I'll ... I'm, I'm glad you're here. And let me tell you, you're one of the youngest guests and you've handled this better than a- a lot of the ones who were twice your age. So, I'm all good with this. Um, one last thing. You know, these kids, I know, I see there's a lot of school shootings. A lot of them, they don't even try to survive them, the shooter. Th- they think their life is so fucked. Do you think their life is really so fucked and they would maybe be benefited by somebody educated with the fact that their life isn't really that bad? I mean, the things that they're so worried about, I ...
Maher
I mean, yes, the climate is going to shit, and, uh, we do have a(laughs) dictatorship b- brewing now, and lots of stuff. But this kid's ... You know, you see him, i- his own actual life didn't seem that awful. Uh, what can we do about that, do you think?
Walker
I think that people need to come together more. I think the temperature needs to be turned down. And I think it's not just there's a crisis of affordability, you know, whether people will be able to have that deal of like job, house, retirement, that feels like we were taught and all the TV shows we watched, people had that. Um, but I think it's also a crisis of meaning as well, you know? It's giving people those social bonds, um, making them turn their heads up outta the phone when they're on their commute and look at their neighbors and the people around them. And I think it goes back to what I was saying, you know, giving everybody the shot at dignity and the shot at being seen in our culture, um, which I think that's, to me, is the way out.
Walker
Um, I'm optimistic looking at the people in my comments who are sharing their experiences when I post a video. I'm optimistic looking at people I see on the scroll, you know? TikTok is filled with weirdos and freaks who predict the rapture or just bottles of wine rolling down staircases or weird sludge ASMR, but it's also filled with people just sharing their stories, and that gives me a lot of hope.
Maher
Mm. Good to have that perspective.
Maher
You're good at this. I'm sure we'll see you again-
Walker
Thanks so much.
Maher
... and you'll be educating lots of people.
Walker
Have fun. Have a good one.
Maher
Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Let's meet our friend.
