True Capitalist Radio / The Ghost Show

About

True Capitalist Radio was originally a live radio show podcast that aired on Blog Talk Radio, covering a variety of topics including markets and current politics,. hosted by a Texan pundit known as Ghost which lasted until 2018, when The Ghost Show replaced it as a live show on December 31, 2019. The former is now a pre-recorded podcast on Spotify with a focus on the markets, finance and political news, which is posted once or twice a week.

The Ghost Show is a live show that initially broadcasted on YouTube, now currently broadcasting on VaughnLIVE, which like its predecessor, covers a wide variety of topics and airs once or twice a week. However, unlike its predecessor, he also accepts text-to-speech donations, as well as video donations which make up the majority of the show.

Online History

Originally titled True Conservative Republican Radio, Ghost would air his first show in 2008, later renaming it to True Conservative Radio. Unlike True Capitalist Radio, Ghost mostly discussed about conservatism and conservative topics. Ghost would eventually end this series in early 2011 due to being disgusted with the current direction of the Republican party under Sarah Palin & John McCain, as well as regular troll raids by 4chan users that began in December of 2009. One of the earliest known raids took place on December 3rd, 2009 and a recording was uploaded to YouTube by user KinetiK001.

He would later air a new show, True Capitalist Radio, as a replacement to True Conservative Radio. Unlike the previous show, True Capitalist Radio in its original format mainly consisted of the host giving his opinions on current topics, giving stock and investment advice, and a call in segment called Radio Graffiti. Like the previous show, this show would gain popularity when another group of 4chan users started a raid on the call in segments of the show in an attempt to troll him. The prank calls generally play soundboards or YouTube videos, and accuse him of racism and homophobia.

These raids continued, and before long the radio show became famous for the neverending stream of trolling attempts that would unfailingly drive Ghost to incoherent rage.

First Hiatus

The show's then-final episode aired on May, 15, 2012. The exact reason for the termination for the show was never made clear, but Ghost's Twitter was hacked and rumors spread that the man was doxxed.

Ghost made an official goodbye stream for a few private users in his "capitalist army". He goes on to talk about how he will focus more on his personal life and the entire stream was done out of character.

The Return

On November 13th, 2015 after 3 years of his hiatus, Ghost would upload an "emergency broadcast" on his Youtube channel.

After this upload, Ghost went dark for another 4 months. On March 20, 2016, Ghost would return to Blog Talk Radio with a 30 minute show, claiming to return on April with full shows at the end of this broadcast. He would fulfill this promise, marking the Return Era, which was the second major run of this show.

The Break (Second Hiatus and Return)

The return of True Capitalist Radio lasted for approximately one year. In an attempt to curb the trolling on the main show, as well as please the trolls with their own show, Ghost would introduce a spinoff, The Saturday Night Troll Show.

On May 8th, 2017, Ghost officially terminated the show again, this time citing the large influx of fetishists in his listener base as the reason alongside a desire to rein in his alcoholism (A goal which hosting the radio show was obviously not conducive toward).

Ghost expressed a desire to eventually come back, and on October 31st, 2017, returned to the internet with a Halloween broadcast and a regular broadcasting schedule, but reduced the show's broadcast from penta-weekly to tri-weekly.

Ghost goes Independent (Independent Era)

On March 21, 2018, Ghost would announce that Blog Talk Radio hadn't paid him for quite some time, stating he was unsure about the show's future. He would announce on March 23 that his account was demonetized due to podcast competitor Spreaker having purchased Blog Talk Radio, and funding for the show ceased as a result. On March 27, Ghost would air his last show on Blog Talk Radio.

On April 15, Ghost would broadcast from Gab, only to be cut short due to Gab servers being unable to handle the large amount of viewers. This would last 3 episodes.

On May 7th, Ghost would use voscast to stream his show on his website, marking the independent era of the show.

After months of seemingly neverending drama, and complaints about how nobody was listening to his show, Ghost formally ended True Capitalist Radio in November, seemingly gone for good.

A New Era

To the surprise of many, Ghost announced a stream on New Year's Eve 2018, entitled The Ghost Show, on his YouTube Channel.

Initially, he intended to steer away from politics and his beliefs, while still providing market advice, and brought back Radio Graffiti on the second episode, as well as shoutouts in the third episode. A few episodes later, Ghost would end up making a return to political discussion and news.

Unlike his BlogTalkRadio days and his independent era days, Ghost started accepting donations via streamelements (initially streamlabs), for the show's text-to-speech service, whether it's a message for Ghost to read, a text-to-speech message, or a video share. Trolls have used this to their advantage as a new way to troll Ghost, apart from Radio Graffiti. If a user donated $300, they would receive an invite to Ghost's Inner Circle discord server.

On April 20, 2019, Ghost would reboot and bring back the Saturday Night Troll Show, much to the troll's delight. Unlike the main show, the format consisted of non-political topics, stream raids, comparing "Instathots", calling dating hotline service Red Hot Dateline and troll its users, and/or radio graffiti. In many cases, several trolls would donate video links to prolong the show. This show would last 47 episodes, when it was replaced with the Spontaneous Sunday Show on May 2021, citing that he wanted his Saturdays back. This spinoff would last only 9 episodes, its future being uncertain.

For the year 2020, Ghost would announce he would return his semi-public Discord server, called the Thunderdome, which he priced at $55.66, but stated that his top donators would receive a free invite.

Templeton's Death & The 2021 Hiatus

On October 1, 2020, Ghost would stream a single episode and would not do another show until the next month, at first stating on his blog on October 9 that he wanted to take a week off to deal with business and personal issues, then stating that he needed more time off on October 20, until finally stating that his dog, Templeton, passed away. Ghost would return on November 10.

Ghost's final stream for the 2020 year would be on December 29, and would refuse to do a show on New Year's Eve after a troll by the name of Ardhamon donated a video where he showed his buttocks at the end. Ghost would not be heard from for a long while, with some people suspecting he may have participated in the January 6, 2021 D.C. Capitol Hill "Stop The Steal" protest, while others suspected that his new dog, Pinochet may have died, or that Ghost died or contracted COVID-19.

These allegations would prove to be false, when Ghost would post on his YouTube channel that he would return to broadcasting in March, as well as opening up a new Twitter account. Ghost would fulfill his promise of returning on March 25, 2021.

However, during the hiatus, due to ongoing drama at the time between a group of brony listeners and another group of trolls, Ghost's Inner Circle Discord & Thunderdome Discord server would be shut down for violating the terms of service, with people speculating that the brony group were behind this. In addition, Ghost's dlive chatroom would get banned due to lack of moderation, as someone would post a fake dox in the chatroom. Both the Inner Circle & The Thunderdome would migrate to Matrix-based Element.

Ghost's Constant Migration of Streaming Platforms

On July 1st, 2019, during the 74th episode of The Ghost Show, Ghost's stream would be cut off mid-stream, receiving a strike for "Hate Speech". Ghost would announce that he would stream to Vaughn.live for the time being. He would return to YouTube on early October, citing technical difficulties.

After a second strike due to episode 138 being removed for "Violent & Graphic Content", Ghost would broadcast from Periscope, only being able to stream 4 times before he was banned mid-stream for an undisclosed reason during episode 140.

For Episode 141 of The Ghost Show, Ghost began broadcasting from yet another platform, this time, on dlive, This would become his platform of choice, until June 29, 2021, when Ghost would return once again to YouTube, citing a "new beginning". This only lasted until episode 241, when Ghost would be given yet another strike, this time for Scams & Deceptive practices. Ghost has since appealed this strike.

While he was appealing his strike, Ghost would return to dlive until episode 250, when Ghost announced his dlive account got suspended for a week. Fearing a permanent ban, Ghost would return to VaughnLIVE, where he has streamed since then.

He also aired a Friday spinoff-show, The Baller Friday Show, citing that due to the shorter broadcasts, he was able to do more streams per week. This only lasted 5 episodes. The first show was hosted on YouTube, while the last 4 would be hosted on Odysee.

The Return of True Capitalist Radio

On October 18, 2021, Ghost announced that he brought back True Capitalist Radio as a pre-recorded show on Spotify, with a focus on the markets, finance and politics, citing popular demand by his serious listeners. This episode would be numbered episode 562 for some strange reason. He also stated he would still do The Ghost Show, alongside the pre-recorded podcast.

Notable Broadcasts

Fandom

Remixes

Those with musical talent will make remixes of songs with Ghosts voice or references to the show.

Images

Related Memes

Melting Pot of Friendship

One of the most notable raids occurred on June 17th, 2011 and a recording of the event was uploaded to YouTube by user DarkRazorZ on June 19th. This raid featured Ghost proclaiming "I'm a melting pot of friendship!" (shown below).

The clip was posted to Reddit on June 19th in the /r/4chan subreddit and has received 1,452 up votes as of September 8th, 2011. It was subsequently posted to the Facepunch^[3] forums on June 22nd, and the Niketalk^[4] forums on June 24th. As of September 8th, 2011, the clip has received 207,611 views making it the most viewed Ghost raid recording on YouTube.

cans.wav

cans.wav is the fan nickname for the sound effect accompanying Ghost's rages. Often, when Ghost becomes angered, the sound of empty cans being knocked around and against each other can be heard amidst the yelling, generally assumed to be a collection of beer cans on Ghost's desk. Ghost has occasionally denied this, claiming it's "just crap on [his] desk", but one piece of merchandise sold by Ghost was autographed beer cans "used in cans.wav", confirming their nature.

Often, trolls treat each successfully-induced instance of cans.wav as points in a scoring system. The True Capitalist Wiki includes a page documenting the highest scoring episodes in the show's run.^[5]

Ghost's gambling addiction

On September of 2021, Ghost would rant about losing a parlay involving the Nebraska Cornhuskers, as they would lose the game, stating that he could have won $25,000 had they won the game. During an aftershow, Ghost would make a bet on a tennis player, only for the player that he bet on to lose the game. This would result in a running gag where trolls portray him as a helpless gambling addict.

Squirrels

Another recurring gag is a mishap involving squirrels, whether its squirrels chewing the power lines, or squirrels chewing his internet lines, causing Ghost to lose power or lose connection. A recent incident involved Ghost cooking meats on his smoker grill, only to accidentally kill a squirrel due to smoke inhalation, providing more trolling content.

Ghost being in a wheelchair

A long-running troll is accusing Ghost of being on a wheelchair, with Ghost occasionally doing a supposed folklorico to prove that he isn't wheelchair-bound. Ghost repeatedly denies this allegation. A variation of this gag is in the form of a text-to-speech donation which typically goes like this: "Oh god, it happened again, I just soiled my wheelchair! Engineer, come clean it up!". There are also other variations of this wheelchair joke.

Ghost knowledge of LGBTQ topics

Many trolls have noticed that Ghost has a vast knowledge of LGBTQ-related topics, including sex acts, claiming that he does it for "research", stating that he only does it to be able to debate people that are part of the LGBTQ community. This has led to trolls suspecting that Ghost is in the closet, despite repeatedly denying this claim. This only fueled more splice material when Ghost began calling into a dating hotline. Many splices consist of Ghost performing homosexual acts, or claiming that Ghost turns his fans transgender.

Bashing of Donald Trump

In older True Capitalist Radio broadcasts, Ghost would frequently criticize Donald Trump. As Ghost would show his support for Donald Trump for the 2016 election, many trolls have played these older clips, with Ghost repeatedly denying saying it, stating it's a splice. Even after stating he would no longer support Trump due to Trump's support of COVID-19 vaccines and the signing of Operation Warp Speed, playing back these older clips will still enrage Ghost.

Ghost's Catchphrases

Ghost commonly responds to prank callers by calling them all manner of derogatory terms, often racist or homophobic in nature (fruit bowls, g'damn Mexicans, internet buttstalker, the po' (his term for black people or once every blue moon hippies)) the prank calls usually involve playing a sound clip from someone/something he hates; be it My Little Pony or the left wing politician du jour, remixing his voice clips into songs or self flagellating sentences, occasionally even sung live on the show and general trolling, derailing, insulting etc. When confronted with people that call him racist he usually flips out often time even resorting to "Guess the minority" if he believes they are "ethnic", his little game that he swears isn't racist. When he is particularly upset, a massive shuffling of cans can often be heard in the background. Ghost has spawned several catchphrases including "I'm an alcoholic", "I'M A CAPITALIST!", "Pooptickler? What kind of a name is Pooptickler?", "I'm shooting pearls", "TROLL TERRORISTS", "You people will RUE the day…", "I'm taking the necessary steps to ensure that… …PUNITIVE DAMAGES OUT OF YOUR ASS" and almost always before he rage quits during Radio Graffiti "Stick a fork in me, I'm done".

Active Listeners, Trolls & Characters

Ghost has had a wide variety of regular guests, trolls and characters on his shows, whether on Radio Graffiti, or on text-to-speech donations

Notable Trolls

A lot of his trolls put on a persona or play exaggerated versions of themselves to make him angry. Ghost refers to many of these people as "Troll Terrorists" Some noteworthy listeners include:

Cool Vibrations

Cool Vibrations is a Radio Graffiti splicer/remixer notable for his use of eurobeat songs as background music for his many splices. His debut began during the Spring of 2021.

Explode Audio Productions

Explode is a Radio Graffiti splicer/remixer notable for his splices that would send Ghost in a fit of rage every time. His debut began during the Summer of 2021

Jackler

Jackler was troll a who primarily trolls via TTS video donations, as well as a splicer. He is known for his parody songs, collaborations with other trolls, as well as his own parody show, The Troll Show (formally The Jackler Show).

He was also the owner of a major trolling group, Guild House of Spastic Tards (GHoST) (formally The Outer Circle) but the group has since become inactive.

He joined the Inner Circle on December 31, 2019 and is now a moderator for Ghost's stream chat. He is also the 2019 Ghosties recepient for Troll of The Year

Petisss

Petisss is a major Radio Graffiti splicer, who first began calling on Radio Graffiti during the summer 2019. His splices are guaranteed to send Ghost in a fit of rage.

Minor Trolls

Apart from the currently active major trolls, there are several other minor trolls that had their own success with making notable splices, remixes and etc. The True Capitalist Radio wiki maintains a list of known active minor trolls

Notable Characters

The Engineer

The Engineer is a character that can be heard in the background of the show who is supposed to screen Ghost's calls for him and manage all of the technical aspects of the show. The Engineer's voice is an unintelligible mumble. Notably, the Engineer and Ghost have never been heard speaking at the same time, leading most fans to speculate that the Engineer is just Ghost. Fans of the show coined the term "The Engineer is a spy" in reference to Team Fortress 2 and also because The Engineer sometimes takes part in trolling Ghost by allowing blocked numbers to be put on the air or playing unfavorable music on the broadcast. On some occasions, the Engineer has even taken over the show by taking calls after Ghost leaves the room for one reason or another.

Germit The Gay Frog

Germit The Gay Frog is a parody of Kermit The Frog, who dates back to the Return Era. He is known for his splices featuring him making sexual advances or performing sexual acts to Ghost, much to his dismay. Although the original caller hasn't called since The Break, the character itself is currently voiced by a troll by the name of Ardhamon.

Nurse Jessica

Nurse Jessica is a notable text-to-speech troll known for sending text-to-speech messages pretending to be Ghost's caretaker. She is also regularly featured on Twitter shoutouts.

Tub Guy

Tub Guy – A caller who initially attempted to troll Ghost with a George Takei impression, but after Ghost mistook some background noise for the sound of bathtub water sloshing around, the character of Tub Guy was born. He will almost always call the show with a sexual remark followed by his catchphrase "OOOOH, MYYYY". More recently, Tub Guy would donate via Text-To-Speech or occasionally make cameo appearances in other people's splices.

Serious Listeners

Ghost has had a variety of serious callers, with some being part of Ghost's Inner Circle. Here are the most notable ones:

West Coast Capitalist

West Coast Capitalist, or WCC is a serious listener that made an appearance during the Spring of 2021. He is notable for being Ghost's "sidekick" as he would sometimes allow WCC to take over Radio Graffiti briefly, but is often the last caller on Radio Graffiti. He is notable for disliking trolls, leading to trolls calling him a brownnoser. On Episode 258 of The Ghost Show, Ghost let WCC briefly take over hosting the show, as he was on the verge of ragequitting.

Trolling Tools

Many trolls have a wide variety of methods to troll Ghost during the show. This ranges from Twitter shoutouts, text-to-speech donations, video donations and radio graffiti.

Audio splices and remixes featuring voice clips of ghost are often used to troll during Radio Graffiti. Another trolling method is using deepfake text-to-speech voice services such as vo.codes and 15.ai, especially if it's the voice of Donald Trump, Ronald Regan, or other notable voices.

Ghost currently uses FreeConferenceCall to host Radio Graffiti. Anyone can call to the radio graffiti line by calling 775-799-9180 or using the FreeConferenceCall desktop application and joining the meeting id ghostshowline. The True Capitalist Radio wiki maintains a guide on how to set up your computer for Radio Graffiti

Most trolling via Twitter shoutouts consist of trying to make Ghost say certain sentences or words, or the use of twitter hashtags in their display names.

Text-to-speech donations can consist of using the text-to-speech voices to annoy Ghost, or making Ghost read certain names, or video donations. Some trolls go as far as donating shock videos or images, much to Ghost's disgust, or certain YouTubers or TV shows that Ghost dislikes

A notable YouTuber Ghost despises a lot is TheReportOfTheWeek, due to the many donos of him doing food reviews. A running gag was doing bait-and-switch video donos claiming it was something of interest to him, only to be an episode of Tenable, a UK-based game show. They can also donate audio clips of up to 45 seconds in length, which would automatically play.

Search Interest

External References