This isn't easy for me to talk about, but after what I saw, I feel I must. Someone has to. For the children.
This week, I was afforded the opportunity to travel with my wife to an undisclosed location in California to be interviewed for The Babylon Bee podcast. It struck me how secretive the staff was about disclosing their location. To a certain extent, I understand security concerns when you are operating an organization that torches political and theological idols, but blindfolds, transported in the trunks of separate vehicles, retinal scanners, and underground bunkers all seemed a bit much.
Still, once my eyesight returned from the drops they gave us to temporarily paralyze our optic nerves during transit, I found the facility itself to be impressive. The complex was multiple stories, with each floor roughly the size of half a football field. I was astonished how large the racist joke department was – it seemed as though The Bee has hired a staffer from every race and given them an office simply to shield themselves and secure racist-joke-telling immunity. It seemed highly suspect, as many of these foreign employees appeared to be there against their will.
Another thing that surprised me was how many of the workers there were people outside the faith. I had always assumed that it was an organization staffed by Christians. Instead I found a large number of Calvinists there.
Honestly, there was something foreboding about the place. I couldn't shake the feeling that the studio and office was a better, purer, happier place back when Adam Ford started it.
After making me wait what seemed to be an inordinate amount of time, the Bee's editor-in-chief Kyle Mann emerged from his office. I was shocked to find that he stood no taller than 3 and a half feet off the ground – his perceived height online the result of camera tricks and forced perspective. Yet, despite his diminutive size, his comportment would have made Napoleon proud. He routinely approached other staffers and berated them, even biting into senior producer Dan's kneecap at one point.
When we finally sat down for the interview, I was frustrated that their entire crew only managed to come up with two (2) questions. Having two jokes is one thing, but I didn't anticipate only being asked about how dumb AOC is, and what I identified as that day. Had I not professionally transitioned to other topics in my well-developed answers, we'd have never broached any other topic.
But all that was just a precursor for the most unsettling part of my entire ordeal. In the middle of the interview, I was giving another dazzling response about the intersection of faith and culture, only to be interrupted when the clock struck high noon.
Without saying a word, the cameras turned off and the staff emerged from their offices with what I can only describe as a glossy look covering their eyes. One Bee employee turned down the lights while another illuminated a three-dimensional hologram of company owner Seth Dillon in the center of their open, cavernous workspace.
After all 70 or so workers were assembled in the darkened room, the robed hologram of Dillon began to speak. And though his words were unintelligible to me, they seemed to delight the worker bees, who began chanting in unison, "What is thy bidding, my master?"
When the chanting ceased, they all went around the room sharing what aspect of Dillon's leadership they appreciated most. The first employee to run out of compliments was summarily fired and immediately escorted off the premises – no goodbye, no severance, nothing but a copy of Kyle and Joel's new book about Pilgrim.
When I started to ask questions about this seemingly bizarre standard operating procedure, I was told the interview would be cut short – they had what they needed, and the rest they said, would be edited to say what they wanted it to say.
And that's when I realized why I had been invited to the interview with The Babylon Bee crew in the first place. It wasn't earnest teamsmanship between The Babylon Bee and us at Not the Bee. It was a brazen attempt to co-opt me and my steadfast devotion to truth.
Well, it may cost me my job here at Not the Bee, but I cannot remain mute in such a moment. Silence, as we all know, is violence, and I refuse to participate. What these men have done to The Bee has gone far enough. For the sake of winsomeness, for the sake of humanity these madmen must be stopped once for all.
**Author's Note: I was kidding about the Calvinists part. Just the Calvinists part.
[Editor's Note: Peter has now been taken for reeducation to dispose himself of fanciful notions like secret bases and the existence of whales.]
