Nov. 21, 2025
Transgender Day of Remembrance: The Lives We Lost, The Reality We Face, and Honoring Lia Smith
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Each week we give you breakdowns, debates, analysis, Easter eggs, and video essays about your favorite games, TV shows, music, movies and more. Especially if your favorites include superhero movies and Star Wars. You can add your opinion and join us LIVE each week over on our Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/humanoidhq or our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@errorcodeshow
---------------------------------------------------------------
Today’s video is dedicated to Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR) — a solemn day honoring transgender and gender-nonconforming people whose lives were taken by violence.
TDoR began in 1999, when activist Gwen-do-lynn Ann Smith organized a candlelight vigil for Rita Hester, a Black trans woman murdered in November 1998. What started as a local gathering in the Bay Area has grown into a global tradition observed every year on November 20, the anniversary of Chanelle Pickett’s murder in 1995.
We look at the reality behind the numbers, using HRC data since 2013:
70.4% of trans and gender-nonconforming victims were people of color
82.3% were transgender women 59.4% were Black transgender women
71.2% were killed with a firearm
And in just the past 12 months:
43.9% reported discrimination based on gender identity or expression
57.6% say they’re less open about who they are than they were a year ago
58.5% feel less visible in daily life
Finally, we honor Lia Smith — a brilliant computer science and statistics major whose dedication to advocating for trans healthcare and uplifting her community left a lasting impact. Lia was a proud member of her university’s women’s swimming and diving teams until this year’s NCAA ban on trans athletes. She participated in multiple clubs — from chess to Japanese to Women in Computer Science — and reminded other trans students that “there are people in your community that are here for you and care about you.”
Today we remember.
Today we honor.
And today we recommit ourselves to protecting trans lives.
#TransDayOfRemembrance #TDoR2025 #TransLivesMatter #LGBTQNews #ErrorCodeShow
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Check out the video version of this episode here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M0aHdPQ76Y
---------------------------------------------------------------
WEBVTT
00:00:00.910 --> 00:00:05.969
Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
00:00:06.750 --> 00:00:08.849
Those of you that are unaware of this day, this
00:00:08.849 --> 00:00:13.009
started back in 1999 as a candlelight visual
00:00:13.009 --> 00:00:17.170
that was organized by Gwendolyn Ann Smith to
00:00:17.170 --> 00:00:21.350
honor Rita Hester who is a black trans female
00:00:21.350 --> 00:00:28.210
who was murdered in November 1998. Originally
00:00:28.210 --> 00:00:33.299
this came from the San Fran Bay Area as an annual
00:00:33.299 --> 00:00:36.899
event to remember all transgender and gender
00:00:36.899 --> 00:00:39.939
nonconforming people who were lost to violence
00:00:39.939 --> 00:00:43.740
and since then has been has grown to be an observed
00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:47.600
day held on November 20th, which is the anniversary
00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:55.780
of Chanel Pickett's murder in 1995. Now the HRC
00:00:55.780 --> 00:01:00.880
the human rights campaign, they They obviously
00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:06.219
advocate for a lot of LGBTQ plus rights So they
00:01:06.219 --> 00:01:10.140
have some stats here about the transgender community
00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:18.359
since so since 2013 Seven and ten trans and gender
00:01:18.359 --> 00:01:22.140
non -conforming victims were people of color
00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:27.120
eight and ten were transgender women about six
00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:33.700
and ten were black transgender women. And 71
00:01:33.700 --> 00:01:37.500
% were killed by a firearm. In the last 12 months
00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:43.700
since the last day of remembrance, 43 .9 % of
00:01:43.700 --> 00:01:47.700
the LGBTQ plus community, specifically the trans
00:01:47.700 --> 00:01:51.760
community has stated that they have experienced
00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:54.560
discrimination based on their sex, gender or
00:01:54.560 --> 00:02:00.060
sexual orientation. And 57 .6 % said they were
00:02:00.060 --> 00:02:02.799
less open about their identities compared to
00:02:02.799 --> 00:02:08.599
a year ago, and 58 .5 % said they were less visible
00:02:08.599 --> 00:02:14.300
in their daily life than a year ago. So that's
00:02:14.300 --> 00:02:18.659
a lot. Let me pause right there. Alex, any thoughts
00:02:18.659 --> 00:02:23.639
or any questions from the chats? I'll wait for
00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:26.340
questions in the chat. They're on a delay, always
00:02:26.340 --> 00:02:29.870
behind us. I will say it's always important for
00:02:29.870 --> 00:02:34.750
us to take kind of a minute. Right. To take kind
00:02:34.750 --> 00:02:36.930
of a minute to just talk about stuff like this.
00:02:37.050 --> 00:02:40.729
You know, I think it's I think it's an important
00:02:40.729 --> 00:02:44.810
thing for us to do. I'm glad this kind of lined
00:02:44.810 --> 00:02:50.270
out well for us. And so, yeah, I think it's it's
00:02:50.270 --> 00:02:54.009
an important thing to think about. It's often
00:02:54.009 --> 00:03:00.759
a population that we don't think about. in our
00:03:00.759 --> 00:03:03.319
daily lives. And again, I think that that when
00:03:03.319 --> 00:03:06.599
we talk about the greater, you know, topic of
00:03:06.599 --> 00:03:08.580
violence in our in our country, we need it to
00:03:08.580 --> 00:03:13.360
take special note of how many trans people experience
00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:16.919
violence, domestic violence, hate based violence,
00:03:16.919 --> 00:03:25.780
etc. Yeah. Some other some other stats that I've
00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:31.759
seen are trans people are four times more likely
00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:36.800
to be victims of a hate crime. And transgender
00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:42.620
women have the largest pay gap of any minority
00:03:42.620 --> 00:03:46.680
in our country. They make about 40 cents less
00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:53.319
for every dollar than like a cis male. So. The
00:03:53.319 --> 00:03:58.870
the stats are not they're not great, so. Yeah,
00:03:58.870 --> 00:04:04.009
it's this day Definitely kind of sucks. Obviously
00:04:04.009 --> 00:04:07.270
there are websites out there that actually track
00:04:07.270 --> 00:04:11.990
every single person that Has passed away in the
00:04:11.990 --> 00:04:14.629
past 12 months and kind of honors their their
00:04:14.629 --> 00:04:18.050
memory. You can learn about them read their story
00:04:18.050 --> 00:04:21.069
Which is really great. So I kind of urge everyone
00:04:21.069 --> 00:04:25.649
to do that There is one that I do want to talk
00:04:25.649 --> 00:04:32.089
about specifically because I found this one I
00:04:32.089 --> 00:04:34.990
want to say a few months ago or maybe a few weeks
00:04:34.990 --> 00:04:40.089
ago maybe a month ago this actually popped up
00:04:40.089 --> 00:04:44.790
on my social media and so this was a post on
00:04:44.790 --> 00:04:46.870
social media that was meant to honor this person's
00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:49.990
life I had noticed that there were thousands
00:04:49.990 --> 00:04:53.699
of comments And obviously I went through the
00:04:53.699 --> 00:04:56.519
comments and the majority of the comments were
00:04:56.519 --> 00:05:00.000
celebrating the fact that this person had killed
00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.019
themselves and rejoicing. And it was meant to
00:05:04.019 --> 00:05:06.339
be like a thing honoring this person's life.
00:05:06.699 --> 00:05:11.800
So I kind of got to know this story pretty well.
00:05:13.060 --> 00:05:18.660
But diving into it, Leah Smith, she was a double
00:05:18.660 --> 00:05:22.689
major in computer science and statistics. She
00:05:22.689 --> 00:05:27.149
was also an advocate for the trans community.
00:05:27.269 --> 00:05:30.990
She spoke on panels trying to advance healthcare
00:05:30.990 --> 00:05:34.910
for the transgender community. And until this
00:05:34.910 --> 00:05:40.589
year's NCAA ban on trans athletes, Leah was a
00:05:40.589 --> 00:05:42.769
proud member of the women's swimming and diving
00:05:42.769 --> 00:05:47.769
team. She was active in multiple... college clubs,
00:05:48.370 --> 00:05:50.250
including the chess club, the Japanese club,
00:05:50.250 --> 00:05:55.250
and also women in computer science. Leah encouraged
00:05:55.250 --> 00:06:00.509
other trans trans students and said, quote, There
00:06:00.509 --> 00:06:03.509
are people in your community that are here for
00:06:03.509 --> 00:06:10.149
you and care about you. I'm the thing that is
00:06:10.149 --> 00:06:13.709
really frustrating to me is that this person
00:06:14.670 --> 00:06:19.230
was obviously very bright. They were trying to
00:06:19.230 --> 00:06:22.250
make the world a better place, getting a double
00:06:22.250 --> 00:06:29.389
major, very hard to do. Leah Smith took her life
00:06:29.389 --> 00:06:35.110
a few months after a transphobic website targeted
00:06:35.110 --> 00:06:40.810
her. I'm not going to mention the website name,
00:06:40.910 --> 00:06:43.709
but essentially they dead named her, which is
00:06:44.040 --> 00:06:47.620
when you use that person's like birth name that
00:06:47.620 --> 00:06:52.379
doesn't match their gender. And then kind of
00:06:52.379 --> 00:06:56.660
called out and pointed a lot of information out
00:06:56.660 --> 00:06:59.360
about Leah Smith caused a lot of hate towards
00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:03.620
her. And then also that went on to social media.
00:07:03.819 --> 00:07:08.199
And she kind of got bombarded with a lot of hate
00:07:08.199 --> 00:07:12.379
messages and everything like that. So This group
00:07:12.379 --> 00:07:16.740
targeted this person a few months later She was
00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:22.120
found Dead, I believe in a cornfield and her
00:07:22.120 --> 00:07:25.879
death was ruled a suicide, which is very very
00:07:25.879 --> 00:07:30.620
sad And this is also a spoiler alert. So next
00:07:30.620 --> 00:07:33.939
week we are going to be talking about Riley bitchy
00:07:33.939 --> 00:07:35.920
gains. Wait, that's not our middle name. I'm
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:40.699
sorry Riley gains who instead of training more
00:07:40.889 --> 00:07:44.069
ran her mouth and got fifth, and she will not
00:07:44.069 --> 00:07:47.009
let the world fucking forget about that. But
00:07:47.009 --> 00:07:52.769
we're going to cover that story next week. Yes,
00:07:53.329 --> 00:07:57.709
yes, we are, because, oh, boy, she's she's getting
00:07:57.709 --> 00:07:59.769
some crap and she deserves the crap she's getting.
00:07:59.810 --> 00:08:03.189
And we don't like her. Jay, thank you for doing
00:08:03.189 --> 00:08:05.730
that topic. Thank you for sharing those. Again,
00:08:05.730 --> 00:08:07.910
I think that these are are important. I think
00:08:07.910 --> 00:08:12.439
it's good for us to take time to do these. And
00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:19.079
and ultimately, you know. People let people live
00:08:19.079 --> 00:08:21.879
their lives. This is the thing I think that bugs
00:08:21.879 --> 00:08:26.500
me the most. I and maybe maybe it's. I don't
00:08:26.500 --> 00:08:30.300
understand the rightly gains of the world. I
00:08:30.300 --> 00:08:34.539
just don't. And the reason is, is like, why do
00:08:34.539 --> 00:08:40.840
you care this much? Right. Like. Like why do
00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:46.899
you care? Okay, like what's the deal? Oh, I get
00:08:46.899 --> 00:08:51.100
it. Okay, I fucking know I I've met people like
00:08:51.100 --> 00:08:54.519
this. I'm I've met them, but I still don't understand
00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:57.600
why they care this much She's a fucking sore
00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:00.639
fucking loser. She lost and she's pissed about
00:09:00.639 --> 00:09:05.059
it, which So this I don't even this is yeah specifically
00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:06.440
with the right we're gonna cover this next week
00:09:06.440 --> 00:09:07.840
So I'm only gonna talk with this for a minute
00:09:08.269 --> 00:09:13.029
She tied for fifth with the trans athlete on
00:09:13.029 --> 00:09:18.330
her team Which means the person who won? The
00:09:18.330 --> 00:09:23.669
people who came in first second third and fourth
00:09:23.669 --> 00:09:32.710
We're all biological women Right all of them
00:09:32.710 --> 00:09:37.590
What do you just alright I'm done with that now
00:09:37.820 --> 00:09:40.320
We'll talk about this next week. Well, we're
00:09:40.320 --> 00:09:41.720
going to we'll do that one because it's going
00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:47.220
to be funny. Yeah. Leave leave some stuff down
00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:48.059
in the comments below.
00:00:00.910 --> 00:00:05.969
Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
00:00:06.750 --> 00:00:08.849
Those of you that are unaware of this day, this
00:00:08.849 --> 00:00:13.009
started back in 1999 as a candlelight visual
00:00:13.009 --> 00:00:17.170
that was organized by Gwendolyn Ann Smith to
00:00:17.170 --> 00:00:21.350
honor Rita Hester who is a black trans female
00:00:21.350 --> 00:00:28.210
who was murdered in November 1998. Originally
00:00:28.210 --> 00:00:33.299
this came from the San Fran Bay Area as an annual
00:00:33.299 --> 00:00:36.899
event to remember all transgender and gender
00:00:36.899 --> 00:00:39.939
nonconforming people who were lost to violence
00:00:39.939 --> 00:00:43.740
and since then has been has grown to be an observed
00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:47.600
day held on November 20th, which is the anniversary
00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:55.780
of Chanel Pickett's murder in 1995. Now the HRC
00:00:55.780 --> 00:01:00.880
the human rights campaign, they They obviously
00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:06.219
advocate for a lot of LGBTQ plus rights So they
00:01:06.219 --> 00:01:10.140
have some stats here about the transgender community
00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:18.359
since so since 2013 Seven and ten trans and gender
00:01:18.359 --> 00:01:22.140
non -conforming victims were people of color
00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:27.120
eight and ten were transgender women about six
00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:33.700
and ten were black transgender women. And 71
00:01:33.700 --> 00:01:37.500
% were killed by a firearm. In the last 12 months
00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:43.700
since the last day of remembrance, 43 .9 % of
00:01:43.700 --> 00:01:47.700
the LGBTQ plus community, specifically the trans
00:01:47.700 --> 00:01:51.760
community has stated that they have experienced
00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:54.560
discrimination based on their sex, gender or
00:01:54.560 --> 00:02:00.060
sexual orientation. And 57 .6 % said they were
00:02:00.060 --> 00:02:02.799
less open about their identities compared to
00:02:02.799 --> 00:02:08.599
a year ago, and 58 .5 % said they were less visible
00:02:08.599 --> 00:02:14.300
in their daily life than a year ago. So that's
00:02:14.300 --> 00:02:18.659
a lot. Let me pause right there. Alex, any thoughts
00:02:18.659 --> 00:02:23.639
or any questions from the chats? I'll wait for
00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:26.340
questions in the chat. They're on a delay, always
00:02:26.340 --> 00:02:29.870
behind us. I will say it's always important for
00:02:29.870 --> 00:02:34.750
us to take kind of a minute. Right. To take kind
00:02:34.750 --> 00:02:36.930
of a minute to just talk about stuff like this.
00:02:37.050 --> 00:02:40.729
You know, I think it's I think it's an important
00:02:40.729 --> 00:02:44.810
thing for us to do. I'm glad this kind of lined
00:02:44.810 --> 00:02:50.270
out well for us. And so, yeah, I think it's it's
00:02:50.270 --> 00:02:54.009
an important thing to think about. It's often
00:02:54.009 --> 00:03:00.759
a population that we don't think about. in our
00:03:00.759 --> 00:03:03.319
daily lives. And again, I think that that when
00:03:03.319 --> 00:03:06.599
we talk about the greater, you know, topic of
00:03:06.599 --> 00:03:08.580
violence in our in our country, we need it to
00:03:08.580 --> 00:03:13.360
take special note of how many trans people experience
00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:16.919
violence, domestic violence, hate based violence,
00:03:16.919 --> 00:03:25.780
etc. Yeah. Some other some other stats that I've
00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:31.759
seen are trans people are four times more likely
00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:36.800
to be victims of a hate crime. And transgender
00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:42.620
women have the largest pay gap of any minority
00:03:42.620 --> 00:03:46.680
in our country. They make about 40 cents less
00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:53.319
for every dollar than like a cis male. So. The
00:03:53.319 --> 00:03:58.870
the stats are not they're not great, so. Yeah,
00:03:58.870 --> 00:04:04.009
it's this day Definitely kind of sucks. Obviously
00:04:04.009 --> 00:04:07.270
there are websites out there that actually track
00:04:07.270 --> 00:04:11.990
every single person that Has passed away in the
00:04:11.990 --> 00:04:14.629
past 12 months and kind of honors their their
00:04:14.629 --> 00:04:18.050
memory. You can learn about them read their story
00:04:18.050 --> 00:04:21.069
Which is really great. So I kind of urge everyone
00:04:21.069 --> 00:04:25.649
to do that There is one that I do want to talk
00:04:25.649 --> 00:04:32.089
about specifically because I found this one I
00:04:32.089 --> 00:04:34.990
want to say a few months ago or maybe a few weeks
00:04:34.990 --> 00:04:40.089
ago maybe a month ago this actually popped up
00:04:40.089 --> 00:04:44.790
on my social media and so this was a post on
00:04:44.790 --> 00:04:46.870
social media that was meant to honor this person's
00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:49.990
life I had noticed that there were thousands
00:04:49.990 --> 00:04:53.699
of comments And obviously I went through the
00:04:53.699 --> 00:04:56.519
comments and the majority of the comments were
00:04:56.519 --> 00:05:00.000
celebrating the fact that this person had killed
00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.019
themselves and rejoicing. And it was meant to
00:05:04.019 --> 00:05:06.339
be like a thing honoring this person's life.
00:05:06.699 --> 00:05:11.800
So I kind of got to know this story pretty well.
00:05:13.060 --> 00:05:18.660
But diving into it, Leah Smith, she was a double
00:05:18.660 --> 00:05:22.689
major in computer science and statistics. She
00:05:22.689 --> 00:05:27.149
was also an advocate for the trans community.
00:05:27.269 --> 00:05:30.990
She spoke on panels trying to advance healthcare
00:05:30.990 --> 00:05:34.910
for the transgender community. And until this
00:05:34.910 --> 00:05:40.589
year's NCAA ban on trans athletes, Leah was a
00:05:40.589 --> 00:05:42.769
proud member of the women's swimming and diving
00:05:42.769 --> 00:05:47.769
team. She was active in multiple... college clubs,
00:05:48.370 --> 00:05:50.250
including the chess club, the Japanese club,
00:05:50.250 --> 00:05:55.250
and also women in computer science. Leah encouraged
00:05:55.250 --> 00:06:00.509
other trans trans students and said, quote, There
00:06:00.509 --> 00:06:03.509
are people in your community that are here for
00:06:03.509 --> 00:06:10.149
you and care about you. I'm the thing that is
00:06:10.149 --> 00:06:13.709
really frustrating to me is that this person
00:06:14.670 --> 00:06:19.230
was obviously very bright. They were trying to
00:06:19.230 --> 00:06:22.250
make the world a better place, getting a double
00:06:22.250 --> 00:06:29.389
major, very hard to do. Leah Smith took her life
00:06:29.389 --> 00:06:35.110
a few months after a transphobic website targeted
00:06:35.110 --> 00:06:40.810
her. I'm not going to mention the website name,
00:06:40.910 --> 00:06:43.709
but essentially they dead named her, which is
00:06:44.040 --> 00:06:47.620
when you use that person's like birth name that
00:06:47.620 --> 00:06:52.379
doesn't match their gender. And then kind of
00:06:52.379 --> 00:06:56.660
called out and pointed a lot of information out
00:06:56.660 --> 00:06:59.360
about Leah Smith caused a lot of hate towards
00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:03.620
her. And then also that went on to social media.
00:07:03.819 --> 00:07:08.199
And she kind of got bombarded with a lot of hate
00:07:08.199 --> 00:07:12.379
messages and everything like that. So This group
00:07:12.379 --> 00:07:16.740
targeted this person a few months later She was
00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:22.120
found Dead, I believe in a cornfield and her
00:07:22.120 --> 00:07:25.879
death was ruled a suicide, which is very very
00:07:25.879 --> 00:07:30.620
sad And this is also a spoiler alert. So next
00:07:30.620 --> 00:07:33.939
week we are going to be talking about Riley bitchy
00:07:33.939 --> 00:07:35.920
gains. Wait, that's not our middle name. I'm
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:40.699
sorry Riley gains who instead of training more
00:07:40.889 --> 00:07:44.069
ran her mouth and got fifth, and she will not
00:07:44.069 --> 00:07:47.009
let the world fucking forget about that. But
00:07:47.009 --> 00:07:52.769
we're going to cover that story next week. Yes,
00:07:53.329 --> 00:07:57.709
yes, we are, because, oh, boy, she's she's getting
00:07:57.709 --> 00:07:59.769
some crap and she deserves the crap she's getting.
00:07:59.810 --> 00:08:03.189
And we don't like her. Jay, thank you for doing
00:08:03.189 --> 00:08:05.730
that topic. Thank you for sharing those. Again,
00:08:05.730 --> 00:08:07.910
I think that these are are important. I think
00:08:07.910 --> 00:08:12.439
it's good for us to take time to do these. And
00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:19.079
and ultimately, you know. People let people live
00:08:19.079 --> 00:08:21.879
their lives. This is the thing I think that bugs
00:08:21.879 --> 00:08:26.500
me the most. I and maybe maybe it's. I don't
00:08:26.500 --> 00:08:30.300
understand the rightly gains of the world. I
00:08:30.300 --> 00:08:34.539
just don't. And the reason is, is like, why do
00:08:34.539 --> 00:08:40.840
you care this much? Right. Like. Like why do
00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:46.899
you care? Okay, like what's the deal? Oh, I get
00:08:46.899 --> 00:08:51.100
it. Okay, I fucking know I I've met people like
00:08:51.100 --> 00:08:54.519
this. I'm I've met them, but I still don't understand
00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:57.600
why they care this much She's a fucking sore
00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:00.639
fucking loser. She lost and she's pissed about
00:09:00.639 --> 00:09:05.059
it, which So this I don't even this is yeah specifically
00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:06.440
with the right we're gonna cover this next week
00:09:06.440 --> 00:09:07.840
So I'm only gonna talk with this for a minute
00:09:08.269 --> 00:09:13.029
She tied for fifth with the trans athlete on
00:09:13.029 --> 00:09:18.330
her team Which means the person who won? The
00:09:18.330 --> 00:09:23.669
people who came in first second third and fourth
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We're all biological women Right all of them
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What do you just alright I'm done with that now
00:09:37.820 --> 00:09:40.320
We'll talk about this next week. Well, we're
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going to we'll do that one because it's going
00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:47.220
to be funny. Yeah. Leave leave some stuff down
00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:48.059
in the comments below.
