Quote · The Louis Theroux Podcast
S8 EP3: Andrew Callaghan on the ‘cancelverse’, lizard people, and whether he’s being sued by Melania Trump
Where this was said
Minneapolis 2020: The Moment Everything Changed
At 24:26 · chapter starts 22:50
This is the chapter where Callaghan explains the pivot point that made him what he is. In the heat of the George Floyd uprising in June 2020, he was in South Minneapolis with his friends, filming with no distance protocols and no insurance approvals. What he captured was something mainstream outlets weren't seeking: the interior logic of people who were burning their own neighbourhoods. The moment that defined the video — and arguably his career — was when a man with a can of gasoline pointed at a burning building and said 'everybody feel like that.' [1] — Andrew Callaghan "Callaghan arrived in South Minneapolis three days after George Floyd's murder, asked a man with a gas can why he was burning things, and go…" 22:50 Callaghan reflects on the poetry of those four words: they weren't a political manifesto, they were a pre-verbal expression of a boiling point long overdue. He describes the immediate backlash from fans worried he would mock the protesters (as he had at the Flat Earth Conference), and the relief when the video turned out to be deeply humanising. The chapter also covers the corporate fallout: Doing Things Media, his parent company at the time, had wanted him to make party content for merchandise, not serious protest journalism.
Callaghan arrived in South Minneapolis three days after George Floyd's murder, asked a man with a gas can why he was burning things, and got one of the most poetic lines in modern documentary journalism: 'Everybody feel like that.' That single video transformed All Gas No Brakes from a comedy platform into a serious journalistic outlet overnight.
While producing viral content for All Gas No Brakes, Callaghan was paid $45,000 per year by the parent company Doing Things Media.
