A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein

For years, Matt’s been unpacking the events, people, and culture wars shaping the world around us. On A Bit Fruity, we take deeper dives into those issues — joined by celebrities, experts, and journalists who help us laugh and learn along the way. Follow Matt: https://www.instagram.com/mattxiv Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MattBernstein1

Episodes

December 26, 2025 95 mins
When Nicki Minaj stepped on stage in Phoenix, Arizona, with one hand clasping Erika Kirk and the other waving to a crowd of white supremacists, even I was shocked. We’ve known the Queen of Rap to be many unsavory things: an insecure egomaniac, a steadfast defender of predators, an obsessive poster (she has my solidarity on that one). But “fascist propagandist” I did not see coming. Today, Olayemi Olurin, Kat Tenbarge and I draw a m...
Mark as Played
When Samantha Fulnecky filed a religious discrimination complaint against her university after failing an essay assignment in which she only referenced the Bible, she was on a path to victory. Sure, the essay was a grammatical disaster and completely incoherent — not to mention offensive towards both her classmates and professors. Sure, the failing grade was deserved. But in the age of right-wing culture war domination, Samantha wa...
Mark as Played
November 28, 2025 104 mins
On the afternoon Charlie Kirk died, Jeffree Star livestreamed a four-minute-long rant about how nonbinary people aren’t real. Star, with his pink hair, diamond nails, and prior openness to using “any pronouns,” doesn’t necessarily fit in with Turning Point USA’s target demographic. Or does he? In this long-awaited and much-requested episode, veteran YouTuber Kat Blaque and former full-time Jeffree Star reporter Kat Tenbarge guide u...
Mark as Played
November 15, 2025 100 mins
There is no bigger danger to Jews, apparently, than New York City’s Mayor-Elect, Zohran Mamdani. The morning after he was elected, the ADL announced the launch of the “Mamdani Monitor” to track antisemitism within Zohran’s administration. Debra Messing posted 91 Instagram stories in a single day about how she fears for her life as a Jew — not because of the rise of antisemitism within the MAGA movement or the mainstreaming of neo-n...
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Jennifer Welch, a 51-year-old Texan turned Oklahoman, is radicalizing America one wine mom at a time. The southern podcaster (who might finally be our “Joe Rogan of the Left”) has become an unlikely, fierce critic of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the corrupt Democratic establishment, and unregulated capitalism, which she says “brought us Trump” (I agree). This week, Jennifer and I cross a generational divide...
Mark as Played
October 17, 2025 105 mins
Bill Maher is, allegedly, the last sane voice on the left. But he doesn’t believe in the rights of transgender people, or of Palestinians. He thinks college campuses are hotbeds of liberal indoctrinarian that have gotten “out of control.” Come to think of it, he hasn’t really advocated for any left-wing position in recent memory. An advocate for breaking out of echo chambers, Bill speaks almost exclusively to right-wing activists, ...
Mark as Played
For the last two decades, Debra Messing — the star of early 2000’s hit Will & Grace — has been something of a liberal Hollywood icon, courting an adoring gay audience and getting into public feuds with Donald Trump. More recently, she’s become the face of Liberal Zionism, an ideology which believes in human rights in the US while supporting Israel’s flagrant violation of them in Gaza. Sound confusing? The contradictions inherent to...
Mark as Played
September 19, 2025 74 mins
The day after Charlie Kirk was murdered, Ezra Klein published an essay in the New York Times: “Charlie Kirk Practiced Politics The Right Way.” Klein’s piece was one of countless teary-eyed eulogies from across the spectrum of political media, and this first draft of Charlie Kirk’s legacy is now being used by the U.S. government to crack down on free speech in unprecedented ways. But let’s be clear: the way Charlie Kirk died does no...
Mark as Played
Dr. Phil has a new hobby: ICE raids. The daytime television fixture bewildered fans when he began touring with the Trump campaign last year, ending his decades-long streak as a seemingly apolitical celebrity. Like so many 2000s stars, Dr. Phil has found a career revival in right-wing media, advocating for everything from deportations to zionism. But what could explain such a radical shift from the man who spent decades trying to br...
Mark as Played
August 23, 2025 70 mins
Sydney Sweeney is Hollywood’s most-discussed starlet, often for confusing reasons. Her existence as a visible woman with a human body made her the target of widespread male adoration, ridicule, and political projection. How she navigates being the new Miss American Dream is yielding increasingly bizarre results — what’s the deal with her eugenics, I mean genetics? And the bathwater? In this much-requested episode, Taylor, Kat and I...
Mark as Played
Yona Roseman is 19. In two weeks, the Israeli government is imprisoning her for refusing to join Israel's military, for which service is required by all Israeli Jewish teenagers. Because she is transgender, Yona anticipates she’ll be kept in solitary confinement for 22 hours per day. She’s been brutalized by cops who hurl slurs at her despite Israel’s alleged status as a safe haven for LGBTQ people. Ahead of her imprisonment, Yona ...
Mark as Played
Jojo Siwa has been a lot of things: an eleven-year-old abused on television for public entertainment, a tween merchandising mogul with a billion dollar brand, Nickelodeon’s first out gay child star, and most recently, a dollar store trad wife. Behind the facade of endlessly shapeshifting court jester, though, Jojo Siwa is a 22-year-old human who has not known life without cameras and a momager since she was nine. Today, Kat Tenbarg...
Mark as Played
On the twilight of Pride Month, the New York Times published (and sent out a push notification for) a guest essay titled “How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized and Lost Its Way” by a gay journalist named Andrew Sullivan. If you thought I could resist this A Bit Fruity bait, you’d be wrong. Today, Chase Strangio — who recently made history as the first trans lawyer to argue in front of the Supreme Court in US v. Skrmetti — helps ...
Mark as Played
From granola fascism to the manosphere, much gets said of the various right-wing pipelines people have gone down in the years since lockdown. One such pipeline remains more mysterious. When you think of conversion therapy, do you imagine a doctor administering shocks to a gay man strapped to a chair? A queer child sent to conversion camp against their will? What if a queer adult goes to ex-gay camp of their own volition? What if so...
Mark as Played
Last week, world-class athlete Simone Biles stood up to failed-athlete-turned-crybully Riley Gaines when Riley antagonized a transgender child to her 1.5 million Twitter followers. A harassment campaign, which has become a standard (and winning!) online strategy for online right, ensued against Simone. The comments flooded in, eviscerating the gymnast (and her sponsors) — “So you want my daughter to compete against boys?” “How many...
Mark as Played
“From the river to the sea” is antisemitic. “Free Palestine” is antisemitic. Children’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel raising money for child amputees is antisemitic. ICE is kidnapping college students for antisemitism. Trump is dismantling higher education because of antisemitism. As a Jew, I’m… confused. And uncomfortable. Today, we examine the validity of The Antisemitism Panic, the dark underbelly of it, and the people pulling the string...
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In today’s special episode, we’re taking a break from political and cultural analysis to chat with someone who’s been at the center of today’s culture wars but rarely in her own voice: Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk’s 21-year-old estranged trans daughter. She tells us about her decision to take back her voice after years of being spoken for by an unsupportive father, dealing with lunatics online, and putting Jordan Peterson in his ...
Mark as Played
Last week, the New York Times reported: “White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Women to Have More Children”. But who exactly is behind this push, and why, and what does it have to do with Elon Musk’s breeding compulsion? The answer is that “pronatalism”, a far-right movement that looks and smells a lot like a eugenics cult (despite what its leaders say), has entered the White House. Today, Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report and M...
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When fitness influencer Ashton Hall’s absurd morning routine went viral a few weeks ago, I was… moved. The hours-long skincare, gym, and journaling ritual felt like an American Psycho-inspired metrosexual fever dream — one peppered with shocking misogyny and profound loneliness. Hall’s viral moment felt like a tipping in point in “alpha male” influencer culture, or the content ecosystem of men teaching boys what it means to be men....
Mark as Played
What does “gender ideology” have in common with ISIS? Well, they are both… things, arguably. As more people become aware of opportunities to commodify their trauma into anti-trans right-wing media bait, the race for those opportunities is getting more competitive, and the results are… fascinating. Today, veteran trans YouTuber Kat Blaque and I interrogate the right’s shiniest new detransitioner, Maia Poet — an ex-trans October 7th ...
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