Not your job but your friends: Matt Walsh on AI and the loneliness epidemic
Episode 1851 argues that chatbots may be replacing relationships, and the comment section turned into a long conversation about porches, cul-de-sacs and neighbors who never come out.
Matt Walsh
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 292,897 views a day, 6.7 times a normal first day on this channel (43,932).
The Loneliness Epidemic Is Real. AI Is Making It Much Worse | Ep. 1851
Matt Walsh usually spends his show on the political fight of the day. A day after an episode on the Cornell 7 case, as we reported here, he turned to something quieter. "The Loneliness Epidemic Is Real. AI Is Making It Much Worse" starts from a short provocation in its description: stop worrying about AI taking your job, because it may be taking the place of your friends.
Nine hours after it went up, the episode had passed 160,000 views. That puts it on course for roughly six times what a new full episode on the channel usually draws in its first day. A short on the same theme, posted alongside it under the title "People are marrying AI and it's out of control," stayed small by comparison. The full conversation is where people went.
They brought their own lives with them. Several older viewers describe the neighborhoods they grew up in, where people dropped by without calling, sat on front porches and turned the television off when visitors came. One father writes about buying a house at the end of a cul-de-sac for his children, only to find that no neighbor has kids and nobody goes outside. A man in his twenties lists his whole week as two jobs, the gym and church, and says most men his age seem to live the same way.
Not everyone recognizes the problem. Some of the most liked replies come from people who say they relax best alone, borrowing lines from Charles Bukowski and Mark Twain to make the case. Others offer fixes, like car shows on weekends. And one viewer simply asks Walsh when they can come over to play cards.
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What viewers say
My wife and I bought a house on the end of a cul de sac because we thought it’d be safe for our kids. None of our neighbors have kids. They don’t go outside, ever. It is quiet though.
@thomas77597See it on YouTubeI recently bought a nice car so i can take it to car shows on the weekends. Great way to meet people and get out and do something.
@J-Train6969See it on YouTubeSo Matt, when can I come over and play cards?
@johnwerkheiser5555See it on YouTube
Public comments from the video's page on YouTube
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- Channel
- Matt Walsh
- Subscribers
- 3,470,000 ▲ 10,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 7,234,872
- Channel views, pace per day
- 862,234 (on a normal day: 855,837)
- Video published
- October 6, 2026
- Video views so far
- 161,700 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 292,897
The numbers
For a channel that posts a new full episode nearly every weekday, a first day like this one stands well apart from the usual.
💡 Test your knowledge
Who wrote the 2000 book Bowling Alone, about the decline of community life in America?
Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam wrote Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, using the decline of bowling leagues as a symbol of shrinking civic life.
