Monologue Transcript
Inside the DSA Viral Jewish Creator Zach Sage Fox Goes Undercover to Expose, Educate, and Entertain!
One of the other frailties of the human mind is the inability to see the monster until it bites you
At this point, it's either indoctrination or ignorance
The Jewish community in California is under siege
There's just no question about that
I think any kind of fascism and extremist reading is always going to lead to really horrible societies
We invented democracy
You know, uh, the democracy comes from the Torah
Recorded here in the Being Jewish studio at the third annual Jewish American Summit in Los Angeles, California, this is a very special edition of Being Jewish with Jonah Platt, the Summit series
Hello and welcome to Being Jewish, your home for deeply candid conversations on Jewish identity, culture, and current events
I'm your host, Jonah Platt, and my guest today is someone whose viral work you've surely seen on social media, but you might not have known it was him Perhaps he was undercover as an Italian tourist in Ramallah, or masquerading as a Columbia graduate, or a non-binary anti-Israel activist, or a DSA recruiter in a COVID mask
No matter the disguise, what's clear is his mission to reveal the deep ignorance of the brainwashed anti-Zionist masses and hopefully open their eyes to the truth
But has it worked? Let's find out
Please welcome my undercover brother, Zach Sage Fox
Zach- What's up, man? … welcome to the show, man
Dude, it's a rite of passage
I feel like- … you get circumcised, bar mitzvah'd, and then you come on Jonah Platt's podcast
That's what being Jewish is
I love that
Let's, let's codify that
So, dude, you have all these different initiatives that I see online
Yeah
It's always, you know, when you're posting, it's Zach with Facts for Peace
Yep
With Street Smart, with Now Think Again
Yeah
What are those different platforms? Yeah
How are they different? Yeah
And, you know, like, what are you trying to accomplish right now? Yeah
So, you know, I come from the entertainment world
I started a production company in high school with my best friend, who I met at Jewish day school
It's called Fat Cam Films
I went to UPenn
I think, uh- Yep, like me … we just missed each other
Yep
Yep
And, uh, studied political communication, so I was always very interested in getting more involved in the political, uh, news world, but not from an activism standpoint
I thought we would work closely with campaigns, which we did before 10/7
We, you know, ran the Mike Bloomberg, uh, presidential social media campaign
Uh, you know, last fall we did, uh, the Cuomo, uh, uh, social media campaign in the last month
But when 10/7 happened, you know, we were just so shocked that Hollywood was so silent
And, uh, so much of the reason me and my business partner dreamed up of going into entertainment was keeping, uh, our bunkmates up at Fat Camp in summer of 2006 with all of the hits from that, that time period, which were all made by these Jewish icons
Like, you know, it was 2006
I think, uh, 40-Year-Old Virgin had just come out, Superbad, Borat
It was, like, the height of Jewish comedy
And we thought all these people were Jewish heroes and, and obviously we were just let down, like a lot of Jews
You know, they didn't wanna be heroes, and so it, it opened up a new lane
And, uh, we just felt like, you know, we have a production company
We, you know, we're not Spielberg, but, you know, if he wasn't gonna do much, then at least we could put our production company to use
And so we started forming different partnerships with different nonprofits
Over the course of the war, generated billions of views and impressions, uh, close to 10 billion, uh, from what we can count
And that's- Wow … we can't count every repost
But we did a big data dive
And, uh, the big common thread of getting views and making an impact was, you know, simpler than I think most people make it
We took, um, the same instincts we had as creators in Hollywood, which was to come up with bold ideas and throw production on screen, and that's how we were able to educate people and actually move the needle on so many issues
And then we work with data, uh, and different data companies along the way to put our content in focus groups, to really re-edit if we need things to be more persuasive, figure out what formats that work
So one of the reasons we do so much of, uh, this undercover stuff, obvious- Obviously, Sacha Baron Cohen's my idol, but it works really well in political persuasion
People don't wanna feel stupid, and so there's a lot of moderate people that have been misinformed, and when they see a lot of these people just completely uneducated on a topic that they believe they're so educated about, you know, their arguments collapse on themselves
And for me personally, you know, doing the characters is such a great way to do it because I don't even deal with the friction
They think I'm one of them, and so they'll sort of reveal things they wouldn't typically reveal
And so comedy's been a great tool
And, uh, I think just as the war ended, you know, we went to a lot of our nonprofit partners, and, you know, the legacy Jewish world is just not on top of the social media battle
No
They're, they're either barely spending any money on it, uh, and, and to the point where they're not even paying creators for things
They're just expecting creators to do things for free, which is just BS
It's just not, it's just not how you do things, and it's, it's a misuse of, of money
And so I decided I wanted to start my own nonprofit, um, that was gonna be, uh, like the MrBeast for education
I felt like just a massive hole in the landscape, not only for Jews and, and Israel, but the West in general
Um- Right … I think running the Cuomo social media campaign for the last month as his main content vendor, you know, we, we racked up like 100 million views in three weeks from all our, our content around socialism, and it just felt like there is a, a real erosion of Western values across the board
And You know, I think the way to pull people in was my instinct, was to make this a broader education movement, um, than just the Jews in Israel, but to place the education of Jews in Israel under this broader tent, so that way we can pull in non-Jews, uh, to our story too, because our story is so, uh, tied to the West
Yes
You know, Judeo-Christian values, you know, we talk about that
We throw that word around
We invented democracy
You know, the, the democracy comes from the Torah
There would be no democracy without the Jews
And, and so much of, uh, innovation, uh, in society has come from Jews, uh, Western society
We're doing it
We're averaging 50 million views a month, and we just launched a few months ago
And, you know, I give that credit to our formula of, like, spend money on the content, actually produce things with good ideas, bring in actors, bring in influencers and, and pay them what they should be paid
Um, and that way you have access to their followers, and you're not paying them what, to say something they don't believe
You're giving them a reason to stand up because they go, "Well, maybe I'll lose a beauty brand," but, you know, there's an economy for education out there too
And so that's the biggest thing
Who are you talking about when you say… 'Cause you're referencing the sort of stable of other personalities- Yeah … that are appearing in some of the- Yeah content from these groups
Yeah
So you're, how are you casting? Yeah
Like, how are you identifying who's the right person to help with this messaging? Yeah
You know, a lot of it is, like, spending time figuring out the hosts that are gonna be able to, to, you know, get the audience to think again, even from just the casting standpoint
And so, you know, when we're talking about radical Islam, you know, uh, it's, you can't call a Muslim an Islamophobe who's afraid of radical Islam
Right
So if you look on Think Again, when we're talking about radical Islam, we're largely using moderate Muslims and elevating them, um, 'cause it's so important
We work with Luay Al-Ahmed
We work with this amazing guy Younus out in the UK
Um, we work with Christian Zionists, you know
And we even put, like, we will put, like, an Arab Israeli Jew, someone like Tamar, who I'm sure you know- Mm-hmm … who's fantastic
He's awesome
He's a, he's a Black Arab Israeli Jew
He, he literally- Wait, Tamar's not Jewish
Oh, I'm sorry
I meant- Yeah … a Muslim
Yes
Yeah
He's, yes, Muslim
Um, but, you know, so we, he breaks the apartheid myth just from his being
Right
And so we're casting him in projects that don't even have to do with Israel and are pro-America, pro-capitalist content as well because it also just, it, it shows that these values are, are intertwined
So casting is a huge part of it
And, and paying influencers is so important because they're, they're reaching out to their followings and, you know, that sh- is, is a paid job in every other part of the entertainment industry
But the, the Jewish legacy orgs have not caught up to that yet
Yeah, I think in the, in the Jewish legacy mind Like the competition for those dollars is other Jewish programmatic things
Yeah, yeah
But really the competition is all the non-Jewish- Yep, 100%, 100% … opportunities for creators in that ecosystem
Yeah, beauty brand
I mean- Right … think about all the s- sneakers
Why, why do people post about sneakers? 'Cause there's money in sneakers
So our theory of the case is that you actually spend money and treat education like entertainment, then you're gonna, you're gonna get views, and we're doing it
And the, it, you know, we're not reinventing the formula
Like y- why do most people, um, who care about the Holocaust care about it? They haven't been to Auschwitz
It's because of movies like Schindler's List and because of people like Mel Brooks, you know? So storytelling to bring people to have sympathy for our story is not new
But there's a massive disconnect right now between the generations running the legacy Jewish orgs, who I think see film and TV as this high echelon, uh, production, and they see social media as scrappy
Mm
And I can tell you as someone who is sitting in the numbers, if, if we could film things on iPhones and do what we're doing with these views and, and persuasion metrics, we would do it like that
It would be a lot cheaper
We would have a lot more money
But w- when you throw the money at the screen, you see the results
It really is the MrBeast model
And if you look at our stuff, like a great video that just broke the internet last week
You know, we sit here all the time, we're going, they are screaming about Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, while these, these so-called activists are ignoring the fact that there are 57 Arab and Muslim countries, and the majority of them allow for child brides
Right
And so if you want to get the media to pay attention, if you wanna get people to pay attention to that, posting a video on an iPhone is not likely gonna do it
And so we casted, uh, two actors, this young girl, put her in a wedding dress, this older guy, and we created this stunt in the middle of Times Square to see if, if normal people would, would step up and, and fight against this
And they did, and it was amazing
It was this hidden camera social experiment
You know we're talking tons of cameras, security
You know, these things cost anywhere from 25 to $35,000
But then when you get 15 million views, like it, that's m- more organic views and interest on a story than a- any amount of paid media could, could do
Yeah
And it's cheaper than paid media
Like, so yeah, we look at it as like we're trying to bridge the gap between television and social media
You don't need to spend as much money as traditional TV, but you certainly don't wanna just be having people shoot things on iPhones because- Anybody can do that
Anybody now can do that
And, a- and anybody can make AI, so that's becoming oversaturated
So you wanna think, what are the things that no one else is gonna do to tell this story? How is that gonna grab people? I remember when we were in the writing room and, and, uh, we came up with that child bride idea, we knew that was gonna break the internet
Like, we knew it
Yeah
There wasn't an algorithmic trick
We knew if we spent real money to make this look like something you'd see on Borat or Nathan For You or Impractical Jokers, that it would go viral
And, uh, I, uh, there's, I don't think there's another thing ca- calling attention to the child bride issue, particularly in Afghanistan, th- that's been able to get this much reach since that one video
And so, and it data tested through the roof on, on bringing people in about radical Islam
So let me ask you about that
Yeah
So how are you measuring, are you measuring- The, the difference between a view and a behavior- Yep, yep … an attitudinal change
Yep, yep
So we spend a lot of the money too on putting things in focus groups
We work with, uh, a variety of different data partners, two main ones, and, uh, we try to figure out what formats are the most persuasive, what content's the most persuasive, what hosts are the most persuasive
You know, it won't shock you that, you know, we have found in our data that it's really, really important to get, one, a diversity of Jews
You know, it can't… You and me are Ashkenazi
Yeah
We're doing the best we- it cannot all be us
No way
And it makes sense that, that those Jews are more persuasive, especially to more liberal audiences- Right … because they've been told that we're white colonizers
So you have to go cast hosts that, that go show that that's BS
So that, and then two non-Jews, super, uh, uh, per- persuasive in the metrics
And the moderate Muslims, there's a lot of them out there
There's more of them than there are the radical ones, 'cause there's a lot of people that are terrified of radical Islam, even moderate Muslims
Um, so once we find a format that works, we run with it
Um, and it, so yeah, super to me, like the perfect formula, data, organic viral views, that's how we know where we're changing
So what does the data show you in terms of, when you say persuasive- Yeah … like what, what is the outcome that you're going for? You go, "Oh, this is hitting that outcome
" Yes, yes
So we'll, we'll like actually like put folks, so the focus groups will involve different types of people, so we can d- uh, cater them however we want
We can say, "Okay, we wanna see if this moves the needle, um, on, uh, Gen Z-ers away from socialism towards capitalism," and we can figure out if we're moving the needle more, if this one piece, if it's moving it more with left wing audiences or right wings versus moderates
Like it's that detailed, but again, that's what- And they're what? They're doing surveys before and after kind of thing? Yeah, it's full focus groups
Yeah
Mm-hmm
Yep, digital focus groups, so
Amazing
It, it's incredible, and it gives us so much, uh, to work with because once we find a formula that's persuasive, somet- then you don't have to test every little detail
You're like, "Okay, we know that host hits through the roof
We know this format tests through the roof
Great
We can go, let's go smash them together for an entire series
" Um, one series we're doing on blast, uh, I, I think we've landed on the most viral, um, Holocaust series of the century
We're taking Holocaust survivors and bringing them on the streets, um, the ones that can still walk and talk, and they're out there, and we're bringing them to go confront these Gen Z Holocaust deniers head-to-head
Yeah
It's, and it's got that fire that traditional, um, Holocaust legacy organizations are just not able to capture, and we're doing it with multiple cameras
I mean, this looks like something you would see in an actual documentary
Mm-hmm
But yeah, testing through the roof on, uh, a knowledge about the Holocaust
And so, you know, again, like we know if something's gonna go viral in the writer's room
And we have an actual writer's room for this
Again, we are treating this like it's television
How, how big of a crew is behind this? About 50 people
Yeah
Whoa
Yeah, which is- Massive
Yeah, massive, massive
I mean, the lucky thing is that we have my production company making the content side of things, so it's like a 15-year-old production company with a big network of creators
Um, uh, and then the nonprofit is the new part
Um, but it just goes to show, it's like it takes a village
And so, you know, a lot of these legacy orgs, and, and I know 'cause we've worked with them, and they'll be like, "Yeah, we're good
We, we have a kid out of college that we- Right
And he's- We have one guy- Yeah doing our communications
He, he can't do it
He can't… It, it's not his fault
He can't do this
This is… And, and he can't do… There are billions of dollars, billions and billions of dollars being spent to propagandize the schools, the universities, the K through 12 schools, and social media, and our enemies aren't even being shy about it anymore
Right
Iran is literally posting Lego videos to capture the minds of young people that the Ayatollah was some great guy, and it's working
Yeah
So if we wanna fight the billions of dollars of propaganda, we at least need millions of dollars to go against it
This cannot be done by a kid right out of college
Y- it, you have to have an actual production team behind it
And I hope my team grows from 50 to 500 in the next few years, 'cause again, it's all about the entertainment, uh, education economy
And so not only are we creating an economy at Think Again, uh, for people to have jobs on camera, but we're actually pulling writers who have been on major shows and, and written for people like Sacha Baron Cohen and stuff
We're bringing them to our fold because we're giving them a career where they go, "Hey, you know, I, I'm afraid to speak up in Hollywood
Hollywood's not, you know, a, a place where I feel safe as a Jew," but Think Again is Hollywood on the internet
And I feel very confident that once we keep getting the views, Hollywood will come to us
I really see a future where if we can raise several million dollars in the next few years, and if you're watching this, DM me, uh, in the next few years, I really think we can blow the internet up and just with more education that is getting attention than misinformation
And by doing that, we are just gonna be building an actual infrastructure for writers, directors, producers, editors, PAs, you know, to actually join our movement and get the best talents
Our videos go so viral too 'cause we bring editors who have worked on movies and TV shows
So they're not just, like, editing based on cutting
They actually know narrative storytelling
And so again, we're not reinventing the wheel
We're taking the same, uh, uh, tendencies of how you drove the car, but now it's a flying car
You know? Yeah
I think, I think the mistake a lot- That gets made in the Jewish world- Yeah … is the opposite of what you and I are doing- Yeah … which is we're, we're a Jewish thing, and we wanna try to be a media thing
Yes
And what works well is if you take- The media thing … a media thing- Yeah … that goes, "Oh, I'm gonna use my powers-" Totally for the Jewish thing
" Well, look at your stuff
Your stuff's high production, too
That's what I'm talking about
Totally
It makes a difference
Well, because I come from the media world- Yeah, totally … I know what that means, and I'm not, and, and I see too often Jewish money going after- Totally … like Jewish ideas first- Yeah who don't have the media experience- Totally … instead of let's just find the, the Zach Sage Foxes- Yeah … who know how to do this- Completely … have been doing it for 15 years- Yeah … and let's let them do it instead of us trying to- Yeah … figure it out from square one- Totally … with our absolute- Yeah … no experience whatsoever
Totally
My, my dream with Think Again is to collaborate with a lot of these Jewish orgs, get some of their budgets brought to us so that we can… 'Cause a lot of their messaging is good, by the way
I, I'm not, I'm not crapping on their messaging
Like, I think ADL does fantastic work against, uh, extremism
But like, you know, they're posting charts, so it's- Right and a chart's not gonna go viral
But if you look, like, at our child bride thing, it was like graphic, graphic, graphic over this whole thing
So it's just, you know, I, I think we can lift them with us on Think Again, and it's not a metaphorical collaboration
What's great about the internet now is you actually collab with organiza- Right
You know, so that would be the, my dream would be to be getting grants from a lot of these guys, working with their data, working with their goals, and figuring how to lift them up as this bright, bipartisan, uh, education source
Do you think that could backfire at all? Like, that part of what makes your content trustworthy is that it is not attached to a, an organization that has a narrative around it? As long as their narrative is under our mission and that we're the ones that, you know, we're- we would be pitching them the ideas and they'd be picking from us, and we, i- as long as they would be letting us lead the way on the entertainment piece of it, no worries
'Cause, you know, we're not gonna work with one that's not aligned with us
But, you know, like the ADL is a great example
Um, you know, I, I do think a lot of what they do is fantastic and super mission-aligned, and they're just not a social media company
Yeah
So, you know, and they're not an entertainment company
They're, like, this big data, anti-extremism org
They're a perfect example of someone that I think, like, you know, we could be finding where the common ground is and really working together to go make a big impact
'Cause they're the ones that have the budgets
They've been around for decades
Right
Yeah
Um, so, you know, this was my, sort of my first question
It didn't, we didn't quite get to answer it- Yeah … is what is the difference really between- Yeah … Street Smart, Think Again, Facts For Peace- Yeah, yep … all the things we see your content coming through? Yeah, yeah, yeah
So Facts For Peace is a totally separate organization, uh, one of the nonprofits we worked with, uh, and still work with
Um, the Street Smart is our channel
Uh, we started that, uh, during the war
Um, and, you know, that's through my production company
And Think Again is the nonprofit
So they're sort of different windows for different types of content
Uh, so Street Smart really is catered towards bold street content
Think Again is very much more about the education
The way I look at it is Street Smart's like the, uh, MrBeast of news, and Think Again is the MrBeast of education
Sometimes there are projects they align on
But Street Smart is not a nonprofit, and so the big advantage we have there is we're actually able to work with a lot of political candidates, uh, that are, you know, ones we align with on the right and the left that are fighting these DSA people or fighting these groypers on the far right
And we're able to do, like, political work on Street Smart
Hmm
So if you noticed a lot of the Cuomo stuff we did in the fall, his videos went super viral
A lot of them through a collab with Street Smart
Um, and we're talking, uh, about a bunch of political campaigns too in the midterms to do the same
We can bring brands, uh, onto both
But, you know, Street Smart is, uh, not a 501(c), and so we can very directly advertise, whereas if a brand wants to come onto Think Again, they sponsor a show
So there's overlap, but they're, they're different
Yeah
Yeah
It's amazing
Yeah, yeah
So you're, you're an NYer yourself
I'm from Philadelphia originally
But you live in New York
Lived in there for eight years, yeah
Yeah
And you've gone hard at Mamdani
Yeah, he's the worst, yeah
He's, okay, so what, how, how concerned are you with the direction that, uh, New York has been going, uh, under his tenure so far? Yeah
The, so- It, it's getting bad
Like, I- the rents are higher than they've ever been, which is completely predict- like, everything that's gonna tank with his socialist policies, it's so predictable, 'cause socialism never works
Right
If, if only we had some examples- Yeah, ex- … we could look to … exact- like, the whole thing with freeze the rent, it's such a con
So he was able to freeze, I think, like, uh, 10 or 20% of the, uh, apartments that you can do rent freezes on in New York
Okay, but then if you freeze those rents, then the landlords just increase everyone else's rent
Right
This isn't new
This is what happens when you put in socialist policies
And by the way, de Blasio did the same thing and the rents went up
So it's just like none of this is gonna work, and that's the only saving grace
I- it's really sucks as a Jew
Like, uh, it's not less fun
Like, when I see Jews leaving New York, uh, it makes me sad because the, the community is still the biggest Jewish community outside of Israel
It is so vibrant and beautiful, and it's what keeps me there
Yeah
Um, I really feel like I get just, uh, it… I, I feel so at home in New York as a Jew
Good
But there's a cloud over the city, of course
To know that we have a mayor who doesn't give a shit about our safety and, and is completely, uh, catering to the radical Islamists of the world
I mean, there was a visual for the Ayatollah that he allowed to happen completely in the middle of the, uh, Washington Square Park, and I went undercover there, and when my cover got blown, the police kicked me out Uh, and, uh, like for film, like, and they were protecting the pro-Ayatollah people
Uh, it's, a- a- and this was all directly from, from Mamdani
And so i- in things like that, it's definitely scary
I think the Jewish organizations in New York are really beefing up their security, and they have to
We are much less safe with this guy in charge
Mm-hmm
Um, but you know, like I, I love it
I hear it all the time
It's like we lived through Pharaoh, we'll live through Mamdani
There you go
Um, the, the socialism stuff's scarier, though, because if he gets a second term, and he very well might, he's, he's, uh, has terrible ideas, but he's a fantastic, uh, communicator
Right
He's very good at… He's a good, he's a good communicator
Yeah
You know, what he knows is he knows social media
He, the only reason he's mayor is 'cause he's good at social media
That's it
Um, but if he gets eight years, he'll do some real damage
I think a lot of the wealth will leave New York
And again, it's like when you, you, when you tax the, the bajillionaires, the millionaires and the billionaires, when you tax them to a point where they know that they're, they're losing so much money that they should leave and go to another state, it, it, you directly impact everyone else because they pay for the majority of all of our taxes
Right
And so when you chase them out, it just puts the burden on everyone else
And so, you know, I, I see taxes going up, and I see everything getting worse before it gets better with Mamdani
But the only saving grace is none of it's gonna work
Yeah
So, you know, we're fighting socialism tooth and nail
I can tell you this, the average middle-class person, working-class person, person of color in Manhattan is not in favor of Mamdani
He won by one of the lowest margins in, uh, recent history for a mayor
You know, Adams won his first election by almost 80%
I think Mamdani won by 50
5
So it's not like he's got some big, broad coalition
Um, but it's gonna take someone who gets social media to go against him- Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm … in the next election, because he is just a force of nature with that, and the DSA is good at that
So, you know, I hear, like, Dave Portnoy might run
Like, somebody like that I think could pull it off
Dave Portnoy? He could pull it off
No way
He's my wild card
Yeah, 'cause he has a social media machine behind him
Uh, it gives, like, Spencer Pratt kind of vibes a little bit
Maybe
You know? But, uh, maybe it's not him
But, like, uh, it's gonna take fire to beat fire
Yeah
And the same way we see it, like, when you focus on the creativity and you put money into social media, it directly correlates with views
And so you're gonna need someone that can, can do that version against Mamdani, I think, or else we're gonna be stuck with this schmuck for eight years
All right
So let me ask you- And we're getting close to the end here
Yeah, yeah
Uh, you, you talked about, you know, the Cobble Hill video
Yeah, yeah, yeah
How many hours and, like, how many people are you filming to get that two-minute clip? Oh my God, it's, like, comical how easy it is
Really? Yeah
I mean, we maybe shot for three hours, but you know, it's… I don't think we had one person of color who supported the DSA in that video
Wow
Like, I don't think there was one
Is that typical for the videos you do, where it's like, the, the people are speaking exactly how- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah … you think they're gonna speak? You don't have to, like- Yeah, yeah … search and cherry-pick? No, really not
Us- 'Cause usually we'll go in with a, we'll, like, see data, like, you know, for, like, the Holocaust denial
It's a great example
Like, you know, it, by the way, like, and, and a lot of times surveys and data are accurate
I remember I saw a video in The Atlantic, or sorry, I saw a poll in The Atlantic or a big, it was like a big survey, maybe it was from YouGov, but it was in The Atlantic that said one in five young people outright deny the Holocaust
Terrifying
And so we go in with a theory, and I'm like, you know, I bring Sammy Stegman, a Holocaust survivor
It was the first episode of the series
And I'm like, I remember sitting there right before we go do this
I was like, "There's no way I'm actually just gonna find Holocaust deniers sitting in Washington Square Park
There's no way
" But we went in with this data, and then we have a theory around the data
First person we spoke to thought the Holocaust didn't happen
The first person we walked up to
There wasn't any race-baiting
I was just like, "What are Gen Z-ers?" And we just come to the first person who looked like a Gen Z-er, and by the end of it, he was hugging Sammy and crying, and he felt awful, and s- And it, and, you know, and he just didn't know
He heard this on TikTok
And so usually when we go in with, you know, these theories, they're very much based on what we're, we're reading about, and most of the time that's true
It's very rare we go in and, and we don't end up capturing what we do, 'cause I don't want to edit things to tell a story
I want to tell a story based on what reality is
Um, and usually all we're coming up with is some viral entertainment, high production hook to expose, uh, that level of misinformation and hypocrisy
And, um, it's been a journey, man
I mean, Ten Seven definitely changed my life
If you told me I was gonna start a nonprofit and then my entire mission in life would be to get this nonprofit to be, like, $100 million nonprofit that is just an education hub, um- for Western values and democracy, and I, I wouldn't have believed it
But a- after 10/7, my whole, um, mind shifted, where I'm just like, there's enough people doing entertainment, clearly
Like Adam Sandler, I still love his movies, but like he doesn't wanna educate
He wants to entertain
Seth Rogen, they don't wanna educate people
They wanna entertain
So that's leaving a pretty big lane open
And again, I think the fact that Think Again is averaging 50 million views a month and it's four months old- Wow … I think it goes to the, our theory of the case that you treat social media like film and television, but I also think we're filling a hole
I don't think there, there is a massive, um, education hole in the internet, and people don't know how to fight back against the propaganda, and the way to do it is with high production and bringing bold ideas to life in a cinematic way
And so it, it's exciting because entertainment's fun
I went into entertainment, you know, originally 'cause it just seemed like the most fun way to tell stories
And the fact that I'm still having fun doing it, and we're seeing actual metric movement in the data, and then we're breaking the internet after that video comes out, I'm actually really optimistic about the future
Because there are people on the far right, the far left, people on the extremes, they hate themselves, they hate the Jews, they hate their dads
Right
You can't move them
No
But there's a lot more people in the middle that genuinely want to be good people
They want to do the right thing, but all they hear is free Palestine, free Palestine, genocide, genocide, genocide
And when you bring the truth to their faces and you do it in a smart hook, their whole mind has opened up
And so because of that, I just believe that if we keep going down this hole, I have this like laser-set vision for what I'm trying to do with Think Again, and I think if we just keep going in this direction with data and throwing the money on the screen, I really think that this is actually gonna become the MrBeast of education
And I think we can stop complaining that Hollywood isn't educating
I think we're gonna be getting so many views that they're gonna be knocking on our door, uh, to be doing distribution deals
So- I hope that's true, man … I'm confident, man
I just so appreciate what you're doing
Like it's- I appreciate what you're doing
Well, it's such a model for what I talk about a lot on this show is take the thing you're passionate about- Yeah … take the thing you're good at- Yep And do it for the Jews right now
Yeah
Like we need the skillset- And the West And the West
And the West, man
I mean, yeah, I mean, really this is the time to, to make the kind of pivot that you've made
Totally
And, and it's awesome that you're doing it
Where can folks check out all of your incredible content? Yeah
My two big channels are Street Smart and Think Again
We're everywhere
You can follow me @zacksage
And if you ever wanna support the nonprofit, feel free to go in the links in all the bios, support Think Again
If you ever have a rich uncle, a philanthropist friend that you think would be good for us to connect to, seriously, feel free to reach into the DMs or email me at zach@thinkagain
inc
Would love to hear from you
This is gonna take a village, and if we wanna see this thing be this big education hub, I'm gonna need everyone to help me build this thing
Amen, amen
Yeah
Zach, thank you so much, dude
Amen
You're the best, brother
Love you
Mm
Awesome, man
Give the boy a follow, and if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss the next one
Until then, I'll catch you all right back here for the next revealing episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt