Cans.wav

Cans.wav, also known as beercans.wav, cans.avi and cans.mp3, refers to the sound Ghost makes after he gets exceptionally angry, usually during Radio Graffiti, and rarely if he is provoked to where he sees a panda. It is made by Ghost throwing his microphone across his office, presumably into "all the crap [he] got around [...]". Causing Ghost to throw his microphone was once considered the epitome of trolling, although that was turned into simply an achievement when Ghost started doing the cans.wav several times per episode.

Causes and Origin
The most common theory for the origin of the sound is that Ghost supposedly has a large pile of empty beer cans laying around his office, which he begins throwing or smacking around when he is upset. Ghost has also been known to spill beer on his desk and lose his microphone in the supposed mountain of cans. After a massive cans.wav he can often be heard shouting "Give me the mic, give me the mic!". In especially large tirades, he may puke and has trouble getting himself together for up to 10 minutes afterwards.

In some cases, he claims that he needs to get his ironically Mexican maid 'Consuela' to come back to the office to clean the place up after particularly violent tirades, some which often result in a rage quit. Ghost takes a notably long time to end his show when he has finally had enough, and usually goes through a long rant that includes calling out a number of groups he dislikes, most commonly the various portions of Junkyard America and the trolls themselves. However, for the most part, Ghost will pull himself back together and resume from where he left off after raging.

Many listeners question the authenticity of the sound (hence the name "cans.wav", implying it is an audio file that Ghost plays), but there is good reason to believe the sound effect is created live. Each individual cans.wav sounds different from the last, in that you can hear either Ghost screaming, or him shouting curse words, while in other cases occasional bangs and glass noises are made. However, it is not clear that the sound effect actually comes from empty beer cans as is commonly speculated, and Ghost formerly claimed it was not cans but unspecified "crap on [his] desk".

In the early 2016 episodes, when Ghost was forced to use a smartphone ghost tended to avoid using cans.wav because it was causing severe lag during the calls, sometimes even throwing him off the air for a while.

In Episode 300, Ghost acknowledged (officialized?) the fan term "cans.wav" as well as the belief that the sound effect is created by the rustling of beer cans, as he announced his intention to merchandise a limited number of beer cans consumed and subsequently throw around with his autograph on them, though he quickly started to question this decision after a fruitbowl caller said he wanted to snort all of Ghost's saliva out of the can. Ghost claims he still intends to sell the cans, but has not done so for logistic reasons (the difficulty of shipping the cans) and has so far stuck to autograph postcards.

While the majority of cans.wavs come from Ghost raging at trolls, Ghost also sometimes cans.wav's out of general anger, whether at the news topics he brings up or rarely technical issues with the broadcast. These are sometimes called "self-cans" or "auto-cans". Ghost can also cans.wav out of laughter and not anger, as in Episode 343 when he cans.wav'd while laughing at Boogie and other YouTubers being demonetized.

Cans Inflation
During True Conservative Radio and early 2011 True Capitalist Radio, cans.wav was a rare occurrence; even a few cans.wav was enough to indicate a show of successful trolling, and "bad" episodes often had no cans at all; the notable exception is 14 cans in Conservative Episode 148 from 2009. At this time, even a single cans.wav was a major achievement and the mark of a good troll.

Over 2011 and 2012, the frequency of cans.wav gradually increased, so that Ghost cans'd virtually every episode, and in larger amounts in each individual episode. The "value" of getting cans.wav subsequently decreased as a form of "cans inflation", so that a good troll was expected to accrue a large number of cans over time. However, the effect was rare enough that trolls were still lauded for achieving it.

After the Return, cans inflation has significantly increased, to the point where news episodes considered bad-to-mediocre still have more cans than all but the highest-cans episodes from before the Return. The Cans High Score reached 36 with the start of the TCR Civil War, and most "good" episodes have cans.wav counts at least in the low teens.

With cans.wav as frequent as it is, it is arguably no longer a significant achievement for trolls, and more useful as a grading system based on their "cans rate". Successful trolls like Tub Guy, the African Booty Scratcher, and (arguably) Twilie Atkins achieve cans with almost every call; on the other hand a troll with a low cans rate risks being perceived as a failtroll.

Highest Record
The current record for most instances of cans.wav in a single episode is 36. This occurred on Episode 358 when Ghost was bombarded with tweets of #TeamEngineer, photos of Ghost's autograph being defaced and ejaculated on, and photoshopped images of people Ghost likes holding Engineer autographs (along with Ghost's autograph juxtaposed with people he hates). He became repeatedly enraged and almost cancelled Radio Graffiti. While this episode was longer than previous post-Return episodes (with the reintroduction of a full third hour), it remains to be seen whether this record will ever be beaten.

Second Highest
The current second place record is 25 cans.wav in Episode 382 with the banning of Teutonic Plague. Ghost raged multiple times during the second hour and especially Radio Graffiti because of what he felt was excess jubilation among the listeners that Ghost had finally agreed to ban Plague, especially a variety of splices and remixes celebrating the imminent ban.

However, the record was achieved by Ghost's reaction to Plague himself. When given the opportunity to give one last statement, Plague confessed that he was a brony, driving Ghost into a multi-cans rage (reminiscent of his response to MaskedPony) for the last ten minutes of the show before an abrupt ragequit.

Third Highest
The third-highest is 23 cans in Capitalist Episode 329, after Ghost had no Thursday broadcast due to Homeland Security harassing Ghost and his wife. Simply recollecting the incident, along with Twitter shoutouts and calls mocking him for it, led to eight cans.wav before Radio Graffiti even began.

During Radio Graffiti, Ghost was enraged by various trolls, and nearly driven to insanity after Tub Guy's call, which brought the total to 20. Finally, during the after show. Ghost encountered some more Trolls that enraged him, G, of all callers, wound up causing Ghost to throw his cans by simply mentioning the Homeland Security incident. Ghost's subsequent rant brought the total up to 23 before he ragequit.

Fourth Highest
Fourth place, at 21 cans, is a tie between Capitalist Episodes 353 and 282. The record in Episode 282 was set during the 2016 MaskedPony Incident. The combination of Ghost raging over Twitter Shoutouts, Radio Graffiti, and self-canning from political rants made for a moderate-to-low seven instances of cans.wav.

However, during the After Show, he confronted MaskedPony about his fetishes, and after 5 minutes, Ghost became irritated with him and started raging for 12 minutes, causing an additional 14 cans.wav. This episode's record was the original inspiration for episode-by-episode can tallies, and still holds the record for most cans.wav during the After Show. It also holds the record for most cans.wav from a single call (14).

In Episode 353, the cans were in response to people tweeting Ghost images of body pillows of Donald Trump, Alex Jones, himself, and more, ultimately spawning a trolling trend that persisted for several days. He was also upset when the Engineer took over as he took a mid-show break.

Other Records
The fastest instance of cans.wav occurring happened in Episode 217, when Ghost expressed his displeasure with Blog Talk Radio's technical difficulties in getting his show live. The total time from the beginning of the show was 1 minute 35 seconds. The second fastest instance occurred during the third episode of the Saturday night troll show, 2 minutes and 25 seconds in over the standard intro to TCR playing by accident.

The longest lasting single cans.wav rage (non-interrupted) occurred at the end of Radio Graffiti in Episode 435, where a call by Tub Guy as a priest featuring the Internet Buttstalker, Germit, and a splice of Ghost, followed by a chopper which had been taunting him all broadcast caused him to cans for 21 seconds. The second longest was Episode 430, where a Radio Graffiti splice about Ghost getting raped caused him to cans for 18 seconds. Third place goes to the end of Episode 383, when Tub Guy called and asked Ghost if he wanted to see how many licks it would take to reach the center of his "tootsie pop," causing a whopping 15 seconds of cans.wav as well as Episode 407 when someone informed Ghost that someone had made porn of his Ponified Capitalist autograph. Fourth place belongs to Episode 369, when "#BoycottGhost" led to 14 seconds of cans.wav. Fifth place belongs to the 2011 splice "I am now officially declaring myself the king of ten-year-old boy ass," resulting in 13 seconds of cans.wav.

The highest amount of chain cans.wav is 5. This occurs when multiple callers get cans.wav in a row. This occurred on Episode 381. Four graphic splices were played back-to back by Benito, TempletonSanders, and Doremy Sweet. They all got a cans.wav and a "gimme the mic" each, with an additional cans.wav being caused when people on Twitter were accusing him of crying.