‘South Park’ depicts a city ‘infested’ by billionaires obsessed with Joe Rogan’s podcast
Top line
The second episode of the final season of “South Park” — which renamed itself “South America” as a dig at President Donald Trump — aired Wednesday and mocked “AI-loving” billionaires who are obsessed with the appearance of podcasts like Joe Rogan’s and portrayed them as parasites that spread quickly throughout the fictional city.
The latest episode of South Park focused on its supporting character, Butters, as he rages against the billionaire and his data centers.
Getty Images for Paramount+
Key facts
The episode “Billionaire Weenietown” focuses on supporting character Butters, who gets upset at school about the town’s “billionaire problem” and blames their data centers for the power outages at home.
Instead of making them appear like the rest of the show’s characters, “South Park” depicts the billionaires as small, rodent-sized anthropomorphic male genitalia and does not identify any of them by name.
“Billionaire Weenietown” is depicted as a small golden mound in Butters’ backyard with data centers, banks and palatial buildings, prompting the South Park character to call in pest control.
The billionaire town mayor then warns his residents that they might start to annoy people and asks them to stop drawing attention to themselves by going on Joe Rogan’s podcast and boosting their social media following with their views on issues.
The mayor then gives a presentation on “proper billionaire etiquette” and demands that billionaires not go on podcasts to “talk about peptides” or on social media to “fuel COVID conspiracies by discussing their wives’ six miscarriages.”
Later in the show, a news segment calls the billionaires a “highly invasive species threatening its ecosystem” and claims the city is “infested” with private jets.
Tangent
The B-plot of the series revolves around Butters’ parents lamenting his anger at billionaires and AI data centers. The plot takes aim at anti-vaxxers as Butters’ father, Stephen, wonders if his son’s seemingly liberal stance on this issue is the result of his being vaccinated against measles as a child. Stephen blames his wife Linda for letting Butters get vaccinated and loudly declares, “I knew what this vaccination would do to him, because I listen to podcasts.” »
What do we know about South Park’s name change?
The first episode of South Park’s 29th season aired earlier in September with one big change: the series and its titular city were now called “South America.” The change is intended to mock President Donald Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” amid an ongoing trade dispute with Canada. In announcing the name change, series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said the move was “inspired by the courage and patriotism of Apple and Google,” who updated their maps to show Lake America after Trump’s order. The duo also poked fun at their network’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, saying: “We would especially like to thank our parent company Paramount – a capitulation Skydance,” the creators said, following the Paramount-Skydance merger that closed last year.
Forbes rating
Forbes estimates Parker and Stone’s net worth at $1.4 billion. The creators of South Park became billionaires last year after signing a new $1.5 billion deal with Paramount. The five-year deal saw the media giant secure the streaming rights to the popular animated comedy for its Paramount+ service.
further reading
‘South Park’ Will Target ‘Stupid Billionaires’ and Data Centers in New Episode (Forbes)
‘South Park’ Changes Its Branding to ‘South America’ in Latest Trump Trolling (Forbes)
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