The Big Ben Show: Mark Dubowitz and Jon Levine

On the status of Iran and the flailing Graham Platner campaign

Jun 04, 2026

Here’s the latest Big Ben Show for your listening and viewing pleasure:

Hollywood’s Worst Nightmare is Already Here

Last weekend marked a historic turning point at the box office that should give every normal American a reason to cheer. Two lower-budget horror films rooted in YouTube and online culture, “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” dominated the charts and delivered a powerful rebuke to Hollywood’s tired establishment. And just months before, independent movie “Iron Lung” did the same.
“Obsession,” directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, is a supernatural psychological thriller about a hopeless romantic who makes a Faustian bargain to win his crush’s heart, only for the wish to spiral into a terrifying nightmare. Shot in just 20 days on a shoestring budget under $1 million, the film opened to $17.2 million and then grew an impressive 39% in its second weekend to $23.9 million. As of early June 2026, it has crossed $105 million domestically and $150 million worldwide. Barker previously honed his skills on YouTube via “That’s a Bad Idea,” teaming up on a successful horror short called “The Chair.”
“Backrooms,” helmed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, adapts his viral internet creepypasta into a mind-bending found-footage horror experience where people fall through reality into endless, unsettling yellow rooms filled with existential dread and lurking horrors. Built from Parsons’ massively popular YouTube series, the film cost around $10 million and opened to a staggering $81 million domestically and $118 million globally, setting records for A24 and making Parsons the youngest director ever to land a number one movie.
“Iron Lung,” written, directed, starred in, and self-financed by popular YouTuber Markiplier (Mark Fischbach), is a claustrophobic sci-fi horror thriller based on the indie video game. It follows a convict piloting a rickety submarine through an ocean of blood on a distant moon in a desperate search for survival. Made for roughly $3 million, the film opened to $17.8 million domestically and has grossed over $51 million worldwide, proving a massive success for a self-distributed indie project.
Together, these YouTube-bred films crushed bigger studio fare and proved that fresh, unfiltered storytelling can capture audiences sick of being preached to. This success came from normal dudes focused on craft, hard work, and actual storytelling over identity politics. All three tested material directly with real viewers and improved based on honest feedback and hard data. They wisely skipped the conformity enforcers and built loyal audiences from the ground up through merit and persistence.
YouTube success forced Hollywood to pay attention. “Obsession” triggered a fierce bidding war and landed with Focus Features and Blumhouse. “Backrooms” earned A24’s full theatrical backing and the support of iconic horror producer James Wan. “Iron Lung” succeeded largely through grassroots fan power and self-distribution, in which Markiplier’s audience sent letters directly to theaters demanding that they play the movie and promising to show up in big numbers.
Sundance and the rest of the festival circuit have long been elitist echo chambers pushing progressive orthodoxies, identity dramas, climate hysteria, and attacks on masculinity and traditional values. The result? Taxpayer-subsidized flops that alienated everyday Americans and accelerated Hollywood’s theatrical decline.
Barker, Parsons, and Markiplier wisely skipped that entire rigged game. YouTube democratizes storytelling through algorithms that reward watch time, talent, and effort, not politics or DEI checklists. Creators can experiment cheaply using phones, free software, and online tutorials while testing ideas in public. Viewers respond instantly, and the analytics are brutally honest. What emerges is a system that rewards material people want to watch, not whatever happens to satisfy an ideological trend or leftist activism. By the time creators arrive at studios, they often already own their IP and bring a loyal audience with them.

✍️ Feature

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🌍 Foreign

🏛️ Domestic

🗳️ 2028

Mediaite: CNN Data Guru Says Americans Have One Message For Biden: Go Away

📰 Media

💻 Tech

🧬 Health

✝️ Religion

Graphs About Religion: The Southern Baptist Convention’s Membership Problem

🏈 Sports

🎭 Culture & Hollywood

🪶 Quote

“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”

— Neil Postman

The Transom

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