Speaker 1: It's eleven fifty three PM on a big nugget body
Speaker 1: pillow and you're listening tonight Call. Hello, and welcome to Nightcall,
Speaker 1: the College show for Artistrophe in Reality. My name is
Speaker 1: Emily Aschida, and with me on the other line as
Speaker 1: always are Mollylia Bern and Tess Lynch. And we're going
Speaker 1: to be joined later in the show by Justin Charity
Speaker 1: from the ringer to talk about anime Travis Scott pe
Speaker 1: and on Twitter but uh not actively participating in it,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, a lot of a lot of other stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a wide ranging conversation, so stay tuned
Speaker 1: for that. We have a night call that we want
Speaker 1: to take right now from the happiest place on Earth?
Speaker 1: Shall we roll it? Hey, nightcall, long time, first time. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm just calling to tell you the story of how
Speaker 1: I went to Disney World recently. UM. I live in
Speaker 1: Florida and I was visiting some family up in the
Speaker 1: Orlando area and we weren't while I wasn't planning on
Speaker 1: going to the parts at all. I've been pretty as
Speaker 1: far as airing on the side of caution goes, I've
Speaker 1: been pretty extreme in terms of not leaving my house
Speaker 1: for the most part rationally, so I think I'm not
Speaker 1: like a gooraphobic or anything like that. But so I
Speaker 1: get there to visit family, and they basically are like,
Speaker 1: so there's this Florida resident discount right now, tickets are
Speaker 1: really cheap. We won't bring this up to the kids
Speaker 1: as a possibility until we talk to you. Will all go,
Speaker 1: but only if you want to go. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: in like some sort of lapse of judgment or feeling
Speaker 1: like outnumbered, or you know that feeling of like, well,
Speaker 1: all of these people think it's a good idea, I
Speaker 1: guess maybe I'm being you know, extreme or something. So
Speaker 1: I went and had a pretty good time. All of
Speaker 1: the lines are six ft apart, there's like hand sanitizers everywhere,
Speaker 1: there's like um plexiglass in between wine formations, so you're
Speaker 1: not like breathing on everybody as you're waiting in line,
Speaker 1: and most of the lines have been moved outside, but
Speaker 1: none of that really changes the fact that like a
Speaker 1: lot of rides are inside and you're just fucking touching
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, And there's like so many different
Speaker 1: vectors of transmission at a park that like even at
Speaker 1: percent capacity, which I think to holding it to it's
Speaker 1: still like a lot of people in and out. So
Speaker 1: I like, I went to the parks over the weekend,
Speaker 1: and then last night, I like kind of woke up
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night having a hard time sleeping,
Speaker 1: and then just sort of in that like middle of
Speaker 1: the night fashion started thinking about like all of the
Speaker 1: different ways we could have gotten COVID by going to
Speaker 1: the parks. You how, you know, temperature checks only cover
Speaker 1: people who are like symptomatically sick and not those who
Speaker 1: are asymptomatic, and you know how many things we had
Speaker 1: to have touched. Anyway, bottom line is, I woke up
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night last night and had
Speaker 1: a full blown anxiety attack, which is actually the first
Speaker 1: one I've experienced throughout quarantine. Um probably because up until
Speaker 1: this point I've been extremely cautious, and then I felt
Speaker 1: I was feeling like I threw all of that away
Speaker 1: by going to the parks this weekend. You know, wanted
Speaker 1: to give you an insider report of Disney World, which
Speaker 1: is like a fucking surreal right now, and just like
Speaker 1: wild to be there while everybody's like wearing masks, you know,
Speaker 1: it just it feels super weird, but also to give
Speaker 1: all of your listeners a warning that you know, if
Speaker 1: you're considering doing something, like if you're maybe feeling like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe everything is like safer out there, then I think
Speaker 1: it is or you're kind of double guessing the way
Speaker 1: that you've approached quarantining and being safe up until now,
Speaker 1: and like feeling like you're being left out of stuff
Speaker 1: because like things are reopening and people are going out
Speaker 1: to eat and ship. I was feeling fine while I
Speaker 1: was there, and then it all just hit me when
Speaker 1: I got home and realized it was a terrible decision.
Speaker 1: So I would recommend not going overall, and I would
Speaker 1: also especially recommend not going if you're prone to anxiety
Speaker 1: is because this was the worst one that I've had
Speaker 1: in a long time. Thanks night call, have a good one.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for that call. That that is
Speaker 1: definitely good advice to heed um to be more cautious.
Speaker 1: Then it seems like when you look at the rest
Speaker 1: of the world and you see how people are starting
Speaker 1: to be a little bit less careful, I think it
Speaker 1: can make you feel as though you're being overly vigilant
Speaker 1: by continuing to quarantine I guess it depends on how
Speaker 1: on where you're located, but um, I was curious if
Speaker 1: you guys Molly and Emily have felt like looking at,
Speaker 1: you know, how other people are operating at this stage
Speaker 1: of quarantine, that you feel like there's a disconnect there.
Speaker 1: I think that people have gotten really cooped up because
Speaker 1: we've been in quarantine for so long, and especially with
Speaker 1: the fires in California and Oregon, it has like doubled
Speaker 1: down on those feelings of claustrophobia and have in fever.
Speaker 1: So I definitely over the past like a few days,
Speaker 1: was just like had this urge to get out in
Speaker 1: the world, just desperately because I could not, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people because they've been holding back,
Speaker 1: then when they decided to do something, it is this
Speaker 1: sort of like liberating moment followed immediately by intense guilt
Speaker 1: and shame. My mom has some friends who it's like
Speaker 1: they're very careful, but especially because they're older, and then
Speaker 1: it's like they'll go to Burger King to get some
Speaker 1: food and then just like have an anxiety attack of
Speaker 1: like what if I just fucked myself over by going
Speaker 1: to Burger King. What if I now get COVID from this,
Speaker 1: like it's not worth it. I'm kind of of two minds.
Speaker 1: I think that there is definitely stuff that I am
Speaker 1: still there's no way I'm going to do it, and
Speaker 1: I kind of looked down upon people who do it.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm I'm in a college town right now,
Speaker 1: and like college bar culture is just full steam ahead here.
Speaker 1: And that is you know, obviously college age people aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily going to be symptomatic or really you know, have
Speaker 1: an have an extreme case of COVID if they if
Speaker 1: they transmit it or if they get it, but you know,
Speaker 1: it affects the rest of the community eventually in some way,
Speaker 1: and that you know, it's hard for me to to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, they just you know, we
Speaker 1: have to we have to continue with life. I will
Speaker 1: say though, that like I do think that kind of
Speaker 1: that that shame and the guilt feeling about doing something
Speaker 1: like going to a McDonald's or a burger king or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't feel at all anymore. I have to say,
Speaker 1: like going to a burger king or something. It's like
Speaker 1: that's not going to be I don't think how you
Speaker 1: contract COVID unless you are immune compromised in which case,
Speaker 1: you know, like like the collar said, all of this
Speaker 1: stuff applies doubly. But there was just this article that
Speaker 1: came out, um was on Elemental, which is like a
Speaker 1: medium blog, like a science and health blog. It was
Speaker 1: chrending all day yesterday, but it was sort of this
Speaker 1: most recent collection of findings about COVID and like, you know,
Speaker 1: how much they differ from what was being reported early
Speaker 1: on about how you know, how it would spread, how
Speaker 1: you need to protect yourself and all of that. And
Speaker 1: the big thing from it is that like the surfaces thing,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of what the caller was calling about,
Speaker 1: is not really necessarily the biggest risk factor. And the
Speaker 1: way that they were conducting the studies early on is
Speaker 1: not really an accurate representation of how like the pathogens
Speaker 1: would be spread, the concentration they would be spread in.
Speaker 1: Just like being able to really concentrate on not like
Speaker 1: on the droplets thing on, just like not being in
Speaker 1: close quarters with people who you're not an applied with.
Speaker 1: That's all pretty controllable. I feel like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's because I've been out in the world for
Speaker 1: a while now that I don't feel I feel like,
Speaker 1: I know exactly like what I can and can't do,
Speaker 1: and so like, yeah, like going to a get pick
Speaker 1: up from somewhere, get fast food or something like that
Speaker 1: is not necessarily the stuff that I'm feeling guilt to
Speaker 1: your anxiety written about. I don't know, Okay, but what
Speaker 1: about going to Disney World, Well, that is your own.
Speaker 1: I have to say though that, UM, I was so
Speaker 1: judgmental at the Honestly, the first like three months of quarantine,
Speaker 1: I had very strong reactions about how I felt other
Speaker 1: people were operating. And now that it's been this long,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to not do that. And I think, like
Speaker 1: the thing with Disney, I don't feel as though you
Speaker 1: should feel guilt or shame about doing that because you
Speaker 1: obviously made a call that you later realized was the
Speaker 1: wrong call, and it's not the same. The only people
Speaker 1: I really judge or think should feel shame are the
Speaker 1: people who are like anti maskers, who are going around
Speaker 1: without a mask to basically be dicks and make a point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that it's worth for giving yourself for going
Speaker 1: to Disney. I I guess maybe two months ago, UM
Speaker 1: or maybe three went there was a socially distanced UM
Speaker 1: like six of us were gonna have a glass of
Speaker 1: wine for someone's birthday, and I went up the street.
Speaker 1: It was just my neighbors, and I wore a mask
Speaker 1: and then I sat down and we were all far apart.
Speaker 1: We were outside, and because we were eating and drinking,
Speaker 1: I took down my mask. Everyone took down their masks,
Speaker 1: and it felt like I was like, I'm not super
Speaker 1: comfortable with this, but I don't want to be wearing
Speaker 1: a mask and make them feel bad. And then on
Speaker 1: the walk home, my heart just started raising and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not comfortable with the fact that I
Speaker 1: did that. And and not to judge anyone who is
Speaker 1: who's going out to eat or whatever, I do think
Speaker 1: that that can put um weight stuff in a very
Speaker 1: uncomfortable position with which we've talked about before. And I
Speaker 1: think it might be like I might consider it a
Speaker 1: little selfish, but I'm not going to really judge people
Speaker 1: for doing it. But there's this sense of like you,
Speaker 1: like the caller said, where you don't want to compromise
Speaker 1: someone else's decision to like bring their kid to Disney,
Speaker 1: and it's they're taking these safety protocols or whatever. You
Speaker 1: don't want to be the one who brings everyone down,
Speaker 1: and it's only after you do it that you're like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, I made a mistake. And I think as
Speaker 1: long as you realize, like, as long as you check
Speaker 1: yourself and you think, like, you know, I won't do
Speaker 1: that again, I'm gonna be more careful, then there's no
Speaker 1: sense in really beating yourself up too much over it,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, Captain bring down over here. But um,
Speaker 1: I'll judge people for doing stuff that is overly risky
Speaker 1: and frivolous. I think, but if it's a mistake, like
Speaker 1: if they really if they're like, oh, ship, that I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have done it, you know. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: going to disney World because you get pressured into it
Speaker 1: and then feeling stressed out afterwards, is you know, completely understandable.
Speaker 1: I don't think this person was, like, but going to
Speaker 1: Disneyland takes a lot more steps and planning and consideration
Speaker 1: than having a glass of wine with your friends in
Speaker 1: a distance hanging in somebody's backyard. Like, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: But if you if everyone's saying, well, here's what they're doing,
Speaker 1: it's capacity almost everything is outside. When she walked through
Speaker 1: the things that they were doing to keep people safe.
Speaker 1: I could see there being this like sliding doors thing
Speaker 1: where you're like, I know I should say no, but
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm trying to like make a reasonable leap
Speaker 1: that that's enough, that that's okay. And I think that
Speaker 1: those weird You can make a judgment that rationally you
Speaker 1: wouldn't think you would make when you're just like, well,
Speaker 1: they're doing this, and they're doing this, and they're doing
Speaker 1: this like I don't know, you know, nobody knows anything
Speaker 1: is the problem. And I do think you can judge
Speaker 1: people for I mean, clearly, like people are still having
Speaker 1: gender reveal parties and setting everything on fire. I surely
Speaker 1: judge those people. I judge people who are having big parties.
Speaker 1: I judge people who are doing things deliberately. But I
Speaker 1: I feel like everyone's had a moment where they just
Speaker 1: made the wrong call. You know that's true for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean it's just again, it's just all a matter
Speaker 1: of what qualifies as dangerous or risky to you. And
Speaker 1: I think that that is and that has been the
Speaker 1: theme throughout the last half year. Is different at everybody
Speaker 1: at different moments, and what feels to you is completely
Speaker 1: reasonable and safe and rational to somebody else, maybe because
Speaker 1: they haven't read the same articles as you or whatever,
Speaker 1: like will seem like a major risk and super inconsiderate
Speaker 1: and a horrible thing to do. And we're all living
Speaker 1: in different, like at different stages of this, like understanding
Speaker 1: and reality of like what this pandemic is, and a
Speaker 1: lot of us are I don't know, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm probably living in a place right now with
Speaker 1: it that a lot of people were living in with
Speaker 1: it a couple of months ago. I've kind of relaxed
Speaker 1: to a point that I feel comfortable with with it.
Speaker 1: Whereas like there were a lot of people who were,
Speaker 1: I don't know, hanging out with friends on their porch
Speaker 1: or something, and I was like, oh God, you can't
Speaker 1: do that. But now I'm just like, whatever you like,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't feel like judgmental about it at all,
Speaker 1: And I would do it if anybody would have me,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I don't judge people for
Speaker 1: hanging out on their porches or for hanging out with
Speaker 1: friends in a group, usually in a pod. I do
Speaker 1: think the normalization of eating at restaurants has been completely
Speaker 1: Uh just know, people who are eating a restaurant. That's
Speaker 1: the one thing where I'm like, no way, no way,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? Like, I was walking the other
Speaker 1: day to get pick up, and I passed um, a
Speaker 1: restaurant that has been operating on Vermont in Los Cila's
Speaker 1: with plexiglass, you know, walls up between tables and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I saw people, I saw a couple that I
Speaker 1: know eating there, and I was like, man, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't like fun. First and foremost, it doesn't look fun.
Speaker 1: It was like, really, like, aside from the actual risk
Speaker 1: involved the plexiglass thing, the entire esthetics of it, you know,
Speaker 1: the everybody wearing masks around it while you're trying to
Speaker 1: eat food, it's just not fun looking at all. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem fun. I get stressed out by the fact
Speaker 1: that people have such like entitlement about being served by
Speaker 1: servers because that's what yeah, or to be out of
Speaker 1: the house, I guess. But you can be out of
Speaker 1: you could be out of the house, you could have
Speaker 1: a picnic. It's like the insistence on being served by
Speaker 1: service workers and the fact that that's who's really at
Speaker 1: risk are the service workers who have to deal with
Speaker 1: hundreds of people every day. Again, I'm not necessarily putting
Speaker 1: the blame on individuals who are like who would like
Speaker 1: to have a nice dinner out. I'm putting the blame
Speaker 1: on all the people who reopened early. Especially now in
Speaker 1: l A we have this al Fresco bullshit program where
Speaker 1: they put tables on the sidewalk that they're now running
Speaker 1: out of money for, where again I'm like, well, why
Speaker 1: didn't they just take that money and give it to
Speaker 1: restaurants to shut down and pay their staff. I completely
Speaker 1: agree with that, and I and again, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a great distinction Molly to say that I don't
Speaker 1: understand why people want to eat at restaurants right now, um,
Speaker 1: but shaming them individually when they've been told that the
Speaker 1: measures that are in place are relatively safe. Like, it's
Speaker 1: a weirding to want to have dinner out when you
Speaker 1: know that you're making a person who works there like
Speaker 1: face the risk of you, you know, contaminating them. But
Speaker 1: it's also hard to not say, well that that's not
Speaker 1: a you know, that's not like a personal flaw on
Speaker 1: their part. Necessarily it's a weird call, but it's a flaw.
Speaker 1: It's a systemic flaw. I think It's also that thing
Speaker 1: of the future being here and distributed unevenly where because
Speaker 1: coronavirus has been dealt with in a better way in
Speaker 1: other places, and because of social media, it's like people
Speaker 1: see that people in other countries are back to normal
Speaker 1: more or less in certain ways, and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: why can't I do that? You know? I think in
Speaker 1: l A, some of the feelings I have about people
Speaker 1: eating in restaurants in New York, I have to remind myself, like, well,
Speaker 1: they're down to like a one percent transmission rate versus
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, which is not so it is different. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This was like an early problem I think with the
Speaker 1: coverage of the disease and so much of it being
Speaker 1: focused on New York, probably because a lot of media
Speaker 1: is based in New York and this is an ongoing
Speaker 1: thing we almost contend with is that, like the reality
Speaker 1: of COVID in New York was not what it was
Speaker 1: in the rest of the country at that time, and
Speaker 1: then I think that a lot of people like the
Speaker 1: measures that were being taken in certain places were like
Speaker 1: New York measures a lot of times, and now people
Speaker 1: are still in the New York reality of stuff when
Speaker 1: like New York is not there anymore. And yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like all everybody's kind of cycling through this stuff at
Speaker 1: different times, and it just makes it it's hard to
Speaker 1: know where you stand. And that this was also the
Speaker 1: most dystopian week because the air quality is so bad.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, unbreathable essentially. And I just went
Speaker 1: out for a drive because I was feeling so claustrophobic,
Speaker 1: and all of the outdoor patios were packed. I was
Speaker 1: just like, people are eating outside in you know, poisonous air.
Speaker 1: It was shocking. Well, let's take a break and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we will be briefly discussing the Netflix
Speaker 1: documentary The Social Dilemma. Tess and I watched the Netflix
Speaker 1: documentary The Social Dilemma, and we are going to fill
Speaker 1: Emily in on it a little bit. This documentary was
Speaker 1: going kind of viral for being about a lot of
Speaker 1: the issues with social media, um especially Facebook. And Tess,
Speaker 1: what do you think of The Social Dilemma? Well, let
Speaker 1: me first say that everyone who was who had watched
Speaker 1: this movie that I know it was like, it's so good,
Speaker 1: it's so important, it's going to make you deactivate everything.
Speaker 1: Like I didn't read anything critical of it until after
Speaker 1: I tried to watch it, and then I I found
Speaker 1: that I had to go find other people who didn't
Speaker 1: like it because I hated this movie. I didn't watch
Speaker 1: the last ten minutes because I simply could not. It
Speaker 1: was not what I expected at all. We've talked a
Speaker 1: ton on this podcast about the dangers of social media,
Speaker 1: about the dangers of being addicted to your phone, how
Speaker 1: it's so dystopian, how you know certain social networks, especially
Speaker 1: are prone to reading grounds for conspiracy theories that can
Speaker 1: be very dangerous, interfering with elections, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And instead of a nuanced and intelligent view of, um,
Speaker 1: the dangers of that kind of thing, I found that
Speaker 1: this was like an after school special for people who
Speaker 1: might have thought like Facebook was good for them. You know,
Speaker 1: it was shocking to me that people like this. I
Speaker 1: feel like the audience for this is people who are
Speaker 1: I guess less informed about how social media works then
Speaker 1: we are, because it did feel very one oh one
Speaker 1: in terms of like, hey, you know, they changed the
Speaker 1: photos so that you'll come back more, and they change
Speaker 1: the headerers because they want you to be refreshing. It's
Speaker 1: very addictive. Did you know it's crazy too, because so
Speaker 1: they're The format of this documentary is different. UM, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of interviews. They interview a number of former UM, Facebook, Google, uh,
Speaker 1: all kinds of you know, venture capitalist people and designers
Speaker 1: and engineers who then many of whom then moved on
Speaker 1: to work at the center of humane technology. That people
Speaker 1: who basically worked at these companies and then felt like
Speaker 1: they were complicit in some horrible unraveling of society and
Speaker 1: became kind of like whistleblowers. And those interviews are interesting
Speaker 1: and worth watching for sure. But then there's this whole
Speaker 1: other part of the documentary that we're dying to tell
Speaker 1: you about, Emily, because there it's wild. There there's a family.
Speaker 1: It's like a dramatization of how a family can be
Speaker 1: affected by social media over use, especially that children in
Speaker 1: the family. And um this is also this leads to
Speaker 1: scenes where three different Vincent car tizers with different hair
Speaker 1: dues are in like mission controlled hairlines, yes and different
Speaker 1: and like one's kind of the like more relatable Vincent
Speaker 1: car tizer and wants the like really polished Vincent car
Speaker 1: tizer and they're manipulating. UM. One of the actors from
Speaker 1: the family from these dramatizations as if like they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're like, we gotta get him to get log onto
Speaker 1: Facebook right now. How are we going to do that? Like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we'll send him a notification that his ex girlfriend is
Speaker 1: dating someone else. And then it becomes this this really
Speaker 1: melodramatic kind of thing of him becoming like a withdrawn um,
Speaker 1: like he starts to look into joining fringe groups from
Speaker 1: this fake political party called like the Extreme Center or something.
Speaker 1: It's the wildest thing. I live in the Extreme Center totally.
Speaker 1: It feels like a Black Mirror or something. But the
Speaker 1: overall effect is more like refor madness, yes, like a
Speaker 1: refor madness about social media. It's like social media is bad.
Speaker 1: I mean that's always the knock on Black Mirror though, right,
Speaker 1: is that it's just like like, did you know the
Speaker 1: Internet is trying to kill you or something? And I
Speaker 1: think that there can be episodes of Black Mirror that
Speaker 1: are like that, But the best episodes of Black Mirror,
Speaker 1: and also just any conversation about this stuff in general,
Speaker 1: cannot stop at the idea that there is a mega
Speaker 1: corp that is trying to completely overtake your attention span.
Speaker 1: There has to be some sort of examination of how
Speaker 1: I think how individuals operate within this and like how
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of beyond the technology, Like some of
Speaker 1: it is like genuine social phenomenons that are like augmented
Speaker 1: by technology, and like that stuff is more interesting to
Speaker 1: me than you know, I mean obviously like Cambridge Analytica
Speaker 1: and stuff like that with ebook is really bad and
Speaker 1: his like drastically impacted global politics over the last few years.
Speaker 1: I think that that's like a different story almost then
Speaker 1: how individuals get addicted to social media in different ways,
Speaker 1: because it's I think hastill a lot to do with
Speaker 1: just how human beings are and not so much of it, like, um,
Speaker 1: the qualities of different platforms. Yeah, and they deal with
Speaker 1: like the addictiveness. They use this phrase about, um, if
Speaker 1: you don't know what the product is, that means you're
Speaker 1: the product, which I shared for the first time at
Speaker 1: the Porn Awards from a guy who worked in anti
Speaker 1: porn antip you know piracy in helping porn stars not
Speaker 1: have their work get pirate ID. But you know that
Speaker 1: was one of the knocks on like the YouTube clones
Speaker 1: for porn and and anything that is like that where
Speaker 1: you're like, oh it's free, It's not really free. You're
Speaker 1: paying with your own personal data. But I do think
Speaker 1: now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, these are
Speaker 1: a lot of basic things that we know. Maybe we
Speaker 1: are just not the audience for this. Maybe the audience
Speaker 1: for this is like your grandparents. Hey, hey, Emily, there,
Speaker 1: I would agree with you. Other than you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not to say that everyone needs to be as deep
Speaker 1: into this and as interested in this world as we are.
Speaker 1: I think by making by trying to get broad appeal
Speaker 1: for something that deals with topics that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people do find very dry, and by dramatizing
Speaker 1: like this, you know, it is obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: people are are being drawn in by the premise of
Speaker 1: this and they're being really shocked at what it's portraying.
Speaker 1: But I also kind of just disagree with documentaries doing this,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, even if it is enlightening people
Speaker 1: that they're addicted to their phones or whatever, I think
Speaker 1: it it almost kind of obscures a lot of the
Speaker 1: points that it could ache. For instance, the you know,
Speaker 1: one of the Google guys I think is saying like
Speaker 1: I'm just so addicted to checking my email. I'm checking
Speaker 1: my email all the time, and it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: like that dopamine hit, and it avoids talking about how,
Speaker 1: especially in Silicon Valley, the culture is that you need
Speaker 1: to check your email constantly and why is that? And
Speaker 1: how do we change that and address that? So it
Speaker 1: presents these interesting ideas and then yanks you away from
Speaker 1: them to refocus you on something that's way less intriguing
Speaker 1: to me. And it's sounds like it's treating all these
Speaker 1: things like, you know, like email for example. It's funny
Speaker 1: to like think about them talking about an email addiction
Speaker 1: in this documentary, but like that that it's all compartmentalized
Speaker 1: instead of part of like a larger Yeah, like you're saying,
Speaker 1: like that this ties into a workplace culture like other
Speaker 1: things contined to like social culture. Like it's culture exactly,
Speaker 1: and it's strange. I think the dramatization has bothered me
Speaker 1: so much because it doesn't present an alternative to you know,
Speaker 1: I guess it does present the alternative. It's either that
Speaker 1: you use your phone and you're on social media or
Speaker 1: you completely disconnect because you have to basically treat it
Speaker 1: like heroin. You know, if you if you take a
Speaker 1: tiny bit of like a you know, glance at your Facebook, like,
Speaker 1: you're going to be hooked because the algorithm is so
Speaker 1: advanced that it knows exactly how to keep you engaged,
Speaker 1: how to keep you engaged as long as possible, and
Speaker 1: you have no agency in this interaction. You are just
Speaker 1: the you know, the little, you know, point of data
Speaker 1: that's going to get whisked along into the storm. I mean,
Speaker 1: that is kind of one of the more condensing parts
Speaker 1: of it is they're like, you know, these these things
Speaker 1: are changing human behavior, They're conditioning users to behave differently. Um.
Speaker 1: And the one of the points was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: the AI revolution is here, but this is the AI.
Speaker 1: This is the AI that controls our world. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: they do make the point that AI is evolving faster
Speaker 1: than the human brain can. However, I mean, it's that's
Speaker 1: all true. But I think that the reason that this
Speaker 1: became so popular so quickly is because of quarantine, when
Speaker 1: there is no other choice to make a lot of
Speaker 1: the time if you want to interact with other human beings.
Speaker 1: And so we're all very sensitive to the fact that
Speaker 1: our engagement has gone way up. But if we disconnected
Speaker 1: entirely and we're not living in a commune or whatever.
Speaker 1: Then what that means is that you are then having
Speaker 1: to like basically, you know, seek out alternative forms of
Speaker 1: communicating with people. Then those people are using and I
Speaker 1: don't know that that's that healthy either right now. You know, well,
Speaker 1: this is like the whole thing with TikTok. You know,
Speaker 1: it's there's there's a lot of evidence that TikTok is
Speaker 1: just basically a personal data scraping tool and a face
Speaker 1: recognition software, and uh, you know, a whole generation of
Speaker 1: young people is now in this data base because of
Speaker 1: this like that. You know, there's a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: to suggest this, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: believe that, and everybody has made the calculation in their minds, like, well,
Speaker 1: that could be the case, but I want to hang
Speaker 1: out with my friends. You know, you make that calculus
Speaker 1: whether it's right or not. Like everybody's sort of making
Speaker 1: these decisions for themselves. And that's why I'm always like
Speaker 1: a little bit like you're not unwillingly being pulled into
Speaker 1: X y Z social network. You're making a decision because
Speaker 1: like for pleasure reasons, for work reasons, for for efficiency reasons,
Speaker 1: you've made the choice that that's I make a lot
Speaker 1: of choices conversely in my life that are not at
Speaker 1: all time effective or anything because or like an actively
Speaker 1: inconvenient because I want to sidestep a certain network for
Speaker 1: whatever reason. And you can do those two. But I
Speaker 1: also make a ton of decisions that totally put tons
Speaker 1: of my data on the Internet. Like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not not clean in any way, but they're all decisions
Speaker 1: at the same time, Like I don't know, and you
Speaker 1: can't be clean because everything is scraping your data. You know,
Speaker 1: cookies are scraping your data. Just anything you do you
Speaker 1: online is scraping it. So the option of completely dropping
Speaker 1: off the internet, especially right now when people are stuck
Speaker 1: at home and can't you know, just go live their lives,
Speaker 1: it seems extremely difficult. What I really would like to
Speaker 1: happen is for new platforms to come up that are
Speaker 1: made by people that are not evil. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: there needs to be less of a monopoly for sure,
Speaker 1: and more competition. And we do the evil test though,
Speaker 1: like realistically, like what's the evil test on people who
Speaker 1: are running in a business? I think that there's always
Speaker 1: going to be a downside to anything like this. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just if there are more of them. I mean,
Speaker 1: for instance, I always think of Twitter as being kind
Speaker 1: of you know, there could be an alternative to Twitter
Speaker 1: with better moderation or like more safeguards for you know,
Speaker 1: abuse and stuff like that. It's just that there isn't,
Speaker 1: and that when things pop up, they're the only real
Speaker 1: hope that they have for being successful is to be
Speaker 1: acquired by one of the bigger companies. And so I
Speaker 1: think you don't even have to pass an evil test.
Speaker 1: You just have to like proliferate in that marketplace and
Speaker 1: give and let people say like, hey, this is a
Speaker 1: better experience for me without it being absorbed by something
Speaker 1: that can make it, you know, part of the monolith. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think we've said this a lot, but maybe
Speaker 1: just going back to message boards, having things that you
Speaker 1: check less constantly, that have more moderation so that there
Speaker 1: are just like down times between reading Twitter all day. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean again, we talked about this on our Bonus episode,
Speaker 1: but like we have to remove to like Twitter is niche,
Speaker 1: like Twitter is not Facebook, and the level of like
Speaker 1: people who are on it and people who are in it,
Speaker 1: it's big, you know, it's certainly a big service, but
Speaker 1: it's not. It doesn't It already is an alt to
Speaker 1: something which is Facebook. You know. I do agree, like
Speaker 1: we should have more choices as far as that goes,
Speaker 1: but like we already I don't know. I I don't
Speaker 1: have total faith in the idea that like just more
Speaker 1: like you know, we need more els in the world
Speaker 1: and then we'll eventually like land on something virtuous. I
Speaker 1: don't think that that's the case. UM. I just wonder.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's when you think about how powerful these
Speaker 1: companies are. Uh. And again, like you know, I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to find something that offers like you know, certain
Speaker 1: things that Facebook offers, but it's not Facebook. UM. And
Speaker 1: there have been things proposed from like the Wikipedia had
Speaker 1: an offshoot and l O and it's just the the
Speaker 1: migration doesn't happen, UM, and it just never becomes anything.
Speaker 1: But I do wonder, like, you know, if you're on
Speaker 1: Facebook for one particular group and you see that a
Speaker 1: lot in UM in like really active groups like like
Speaker 1: podcast fan groups or UM parenting groups or whatever, where
Speaker 1: people say, I'm only on here for this, if that
Speaker 1: group could splinter off onto like a different site that
Speaker 1: had different, a whole different way of operating. Would that
Speaker 1: be enough to draw those people away from Facebook? Like
Speaker 1: for me, it would be you know, if you just
Speaker 1: went to like a list server or something. Yeah, yeah, no, totally,
Speaker 1: I think, I think. And that's the thing, Like a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize that those options are out
Speaker 1: there for them, or they don't like it. Just takes
Speaker 1: a kind of critical mass of people to be like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna move this chess enthusiast group to yeah, who
Speaker 1: list servan It'll be fine, and then you'll need to
Speaker 1: check Facebook like one third as much as you do now,
Speaker 1: you know, Like, uh, we're not at all. I think
Speaker 1: the people can make these decisionsmselves. We are now joined
Speaker 1: by Justin Charity. Justin Charity is a writer at The Ringer.
Speaker 1: He is the co host of Sound Only on The
Speaker 1: Ringer Network. Great podcast. Highly recommend it. Hi, Justin, what's up? Hello?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? This is exciting. I'm star struck by
Speaker 1: all of you. I feel like we've been trying to
Speaker 1: get you on Nightcall forever. I just feel like I
Speaker 1: feel like if there's going to be a Justin Charity
Speaker 1: episode of Nightcall, like you know, we just have to
Speaker 1: prepare the world like it gets hot. Um, So we
Speaker 1: were just talking about the social network and not that
Speaker 1: this is the main reason that we wanted to have
Speaker 1: you on the podcast. There's plenty of other stuff to
Speaker 1: talk about. But and I'm sure that you're sick of
Speaker 1: being bugged about this, but you are one of my
Speaker 1: friends who was not on any social media at all anymore.
Speaker 1: He took the viv chastity, the valve chastity. When did
Speaker 1: you do this? I don't you know what it is.
Speaker 1: I don't remember when it's specifically, it was vaguely around
Speaker 1: the time of whenever Kanye was releasing YEA. I just
Speaker 1: remember that. I remember like that was the last phase
Speaker 1: of Twitter discourse. That was around four was the Yea discourse?
Speaker 1: Who was that the last straw? You know? I didn't
Speaker 1: have that many strong opinions about YEA, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: Was it more about the fandoms surrounding Yea? And then
Speaker 1: wasn't about Kanye. It was just sort of anti climactic.
Speaker 1: I think by that point it was probably several other things. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the discourse was just sort of like the epilogue
Speaker 1: of my time on social media. It is a pretty
Speaker 1: like intense concentration of a lot of things that are
Speaker 1: wrong with how especially like art and celebrity gets discussed online,
Speaker 1: like anything having to do with Kanye can get you know,
Speaker 1: just to uh real quick. I didn't even like I
Speaker 1: was kind of tuned out for the discourse. I had
Speaker 1: to say. I think there was something in my brain
Speaker 1: that just like flagged. I was like, this is exhausting.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to engage with this. And then I
Speaker 1: realized I think I had assumed you were still on
Speaker 1: Instagram or something, because you used to do all sorts
Speaker 1: of like bake good stuff and cooking on Instagram, which
Speaker 1: was always great. And then I realized you weren't even
Speaker 1: on Instagram anymore. I was like, dang even all the way,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm like dramatic. That's the problem is
Speaker 1: that I'm dramatic, right, So I had to be like
Speaker 1: another thing because I deleted Facebook and I lead it Instagram.
Speaker 1: I think I deleted something else. I can't even remember.
Speaker 1: Did you delete them all at once? Were you like
Speaker 1: one day that's it? Yeah? In one week? And then
Speaker 1: they do the thing where they try to sweat you
Speaker 1: out so they're like, listen, your account will be around
Speaker 1: for a month. It's just in case you want to.
Speaker 1: It's like the worst breakup ever. Yeah, that's the one
Speaker 1: that I really that's the only one I've totally unplugged from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I cut you off, but I just to
Speaker 1: go back to what you were saying a second ago.
Speaker 1: You're on Reddit now or did you like you segued
Speaker 1: to read it for No, I didn't say. I joined
Speaker 1: read it maybe like a year after I left Twitter,
Speaker 1: um because I kind of i'd never understood read it.
Speaker 1: Like back during the thing, I remember it felt like
Speaker 1: a decade ago where people were really really hyping read
Speaker 1: it and trying to explain read it to me, and
Speaker 1: it all wait, my eyes glazed over, and I think
Speaker 1: I just got into this. Oh you know what it was.
Speaker 1: It's the amateur boxing subreddit that I sort of like
Speaker 1: followed enough that I was like, I should just make
Speaker 1: an account. Like. I actually like the structure of conver
Speaker 1: stations on Reddit, even if there are plenty of reasons
Speaker 1: not to like particular subreddits. Um. Something about the conversational
Speaker 1: structure and the anonymity structure Reddit feels a bit healthier
Speaker 1: to me. Even though I know that healthy is not
Speaker 1: exactly read it's reputation. I love Reddit. It's a message
Speaker 1: board exactly. Yeah, and that's why I'm like, why am
Speaker 1: I not more into Reddit? Like that's the context of
Speaker 1: Internet conversation I grew up with and feel most comfortable with.
Speaker 1: I have a Reddit account, I guess I've never posted
Speaker 1: on it, and I mostly just lark on a few
Speaker 1: different subreddits. But uh, tests, aren't you a big Reddit lurker.
Speaker 1: I'm giant Reddit lurker. I learn on Reddit for like,
Speaker 1: I set aside about an hour every evening from I
Speaker 1: reddit lurking. Yes, teach me how to reddit because I
Speaker 1: and I still feel like I don't do it right
Speaker 1: because I read to you know what I mean. I've
Speaker 1: I've maybe posted on Reddit five times. Ever, I've only
Speaker 1: posted I think twice. But I I find it less
Speaker 1: addictive and less um like social media. When I pick two,
Speaker 1: I don't have like a curated homepage even I just
Speaker 1: picked two or three boards that I like and one.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're both pretty popular with the legal Advice
Speaker 1: and the am I the Asshole are my two mains.
Speaker 1: Am I the Asshole? Often that's that gets viral enough
Speaker 1: that it spreads to other other networks corners of the Internet.
Speaker 1: The Legal Advice is my favorite forever. I've talked about
Speaker 1: it on the podcast before, just because it it. There
Speaker 1: was this one post about bats that I got in
Speaker 1: trouble for because there was there was like a ton
Speaker 1: of misinformation. It was an abandoned house that had a
Speaker 1: bat problem and it was going to be condemned, and
Speaker 1: there were a bunch of questions about that, and then
Speaker 1: in the comments people were like fearmongering about bats. And
Speaker 1: then we had a few bat defenders call into the
Speaker 1: pod and be like, test, don't get your information from Reddit,
Speaker 1: and I didn't listen. I still do. I followed the
Speaker 1: Bats every Hour Twitter account, which one of the main
Speaker 1: things keeping me on Twitter is these accounts that post
Speaker 1: a picture of a bat. There's one that does a bat,
Speaker 1: one that does a rat, and one that does a cat. No,
Speaker 1: there's also as Yes, but the Bats every Hour it's
Speaker 1: like they also are are pro bat activists, so they
Speaker 1: have a lot of bat facts that are like bats
Speaker 1: don't actually give you rabies, uh people think they do,
Speaker 1: and like vampire bats only eat like a teaspoon of
Speaker 1: blood and it's from cows. Mm hmmmm, I don't need
Speaker 1: to fear bat. It's like that pr It's like, that's
Speaker 1: like Katie Golden's bird bird Activists birds rights activists, except
Speaker 1: for real Bat's got a bad rap this year. We
Speaker 1: gotta come rep for the bats. We got bats here.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Yeah, I feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: that's the thing though, Like you were talking about, like
Speaker 1: those sorts of accounts keep you on Twitter, and I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a big key difference with like Twitter
Speaker 1: versus a reddit or something like when I'm on Reddit,
Speaker 1: I'm usually specifically looking to find out about one top
Speaker 1: bick and I can really hone in on it and
Speaker 1: then get lost in a three posts long thread and
Speaker 1: just read every single thing. But what I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: most recently is terrace House, that I had that kind
Speaker 1: of relationship to a Reddit where it's like, um, like,
Speaker 1: you know, anytime a new episode, would watch a new episode,
Speaker 1: then I would go and and read the mega thread
Speaker 1: for that episode and just read every single person's opinions
Speaker 1: about it, which felt very cozy. It felt like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, back in the old days on like TV
Speaker 1: without pity or something, shout out terror Terror Ariano, Like,
Speaker 1: I used to just go and read thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of posts about like Battlestar Galactica episodes and stuff, and
Speaker 1: that was my Internet. And there is something kind of
Speaker 1: nice and chill about that with with Reddit, and you're
Speaker 1: not going to accidentally run into other information that gets
Speaker 1: you off track or angry about something else or something.
Speaker 1: You're like there to read about this one thing. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: justin You Are So Sound Only, which originally started as
Speaker 1: an AVA podcast for when Ava was the first one
Speaker 1: on Netflix. You and Michael Peters did. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: a recap. It was like you guys, you guys go deep,
Speaker 1: Like every cap doesn't do it justice, I feel, especially
Speaker 1: because we didn't do per episode right. We sort of
Speaker 1: clustered the episodes into batches of six specifically to what
Speaker 1: it being too too like beat for beat recappy right,
Speaker 1: which is easy to do, I imagine. But yeah, and
Speaker 1: then we just yelled for four hours at a time
Speaker 1: about the saving Galleon and it was great and I
Speaker 1: lost my voice by episode two unfortunately. It was just
Speaker 1: it was great. It was ecstatic. I have to say,
Speaker 1: having edited you on podcasts, because you came on a
Speaker 1: couple of times on my short lived anime podcast back
Speaker 1: in the day, like you have a great podcast voice,
Speaker 1: but like there are peaks around the peaks, so you
Speaker 1: can't get strain this. But yeah, uh, but then you
Speaker 1: guys brought it back recently. How many weeks now have
Speaker 1: you been back? Six? I think we're on episode six.
Speaker 1: We talked about Travis Scott this past week. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's not an anime podcast now, and that's sort of
Speaker 1: the pitch is that this is not an anime podcast,
Speaker 1: and we're well, you had one, uh, you had like
Speaker 1: your first real anime episode, and I feel like it
Speaker 1: was like four weeks in or something like that, so
Speaker 1: it's diffuse. It's like wrapped the Internet anime all that.
Speaker 1: So Millennial Ship, did you talk about the Travis Scott burger? Yes? Yes,
Speaker 1: and the merch okay here, okay, didn't if you buy
Speaker 1: the Travis Scott merchandise, because I seriously considered it. And
Speaker 1: I'm thirty three, so let's talk about this because I
Speaker 1: didn't just listen to that episode and Mico was was
Speaker 1: clowning on your big time for getting the shorts. I
Speaker 1: believe I wanted to that they sold out. I wanted
Speaker 1: to get Okay, So Travis Scott was selling what they're
Speaker 1: like seventy dollar Jim short and there's a red pair
Speaker 1: and they look like they're just extremely mid nineties sort
Speaker 1: of overdesigned, and I almost I could have bottom because
Speaker 1: I just I spend time in mccaren park, you know,
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, and you know I do jump squats. I
Speaker 1: could do some jump squats in those shorts. You know,
Speaker 1: it could have worked for me. And then they sold
Speaker 1: out within the day, and then all the other merch
Speaker 1: is not good, Like Travis Scott is one of those
Speaker 1: rappers who has that kind of way too busy, millennial
Speaker 1: rapper aesthetic. And there's exactly one article of clothing of
Speaker 1: of that whole merch bundle from McDonald's that I thought
Speaker 1: I could pull this off. And then the rest of
Speaker 1: it is like, come on, dog, I pay taxes. I'm
Speaker 1: too old for this, okay, But did you have the burger? No?
Speaker 1: And that's the thing, like I I go to McDonald's
Speaker 1: maybe like once every other year, and like it's not time,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I operate like an animal.
Speaker 1: It's not time for me to do my McDonald's pilgrimage.
Speaker 1: Even if Caxus Jack sends you you're not No, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm just not in the move. May I
Speaker 1: ask what this burger was because I'm I'm out of
Speaker 1: the loop. Yeah, explain what's I forget what's on the
Speaker 1: burger now? I'm just quarter pounder with bacon on it.
Speaker 1: It's just like a burger they already have on the menu.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. It's just like the Travis Scott burger.
Speaker 1: It's just like a bacon cheeseburger. It's a whole because
Speaker 1: you have the fries, but then you get barbecue sauce
Speaker 1: for the fry. And it's funny because the commercial for
Speaker 1: it is so it really wants you to be impressed.
Speaker 1: Counter to what Molly just said. It really wants it's
Speaker 1: like pitching you on the idea of a hamburger, like
Speaker 1: you've never heard of it. So it's like, what if
Speaker 1: you went to McDonald's and you got a sandwich in
Speaker 1: this in some bread, but then there's meat and then
Speaker 1: there's sauce on it. Wouldn't that be nice? Tell him?
Speaker 1: I have a seen It's like, wait a minute, this
Speaker 1: is not I don't am I being sold something I
Speaker 1: already have, is how I feel about. That's what's so
Speaker 1: funny about it to me is that it's so like postmodern.
Speaker 1: It's like you're ordering what Travis Scott orders that McDonald's exactly.
Speaker 1: It's not like a special burger they made for him.
Speaker 1: It's like, this is what Cactus Jack orders when he
Speaker 1: goes to McDonald's, and you can go and do it too.
Speaker 1: I feel like Kanye was gonna do that gap promotion
Speaker 1: where he was going to like make a bunch of
Speaker 1: khakis and sell them, you know, cargo pants and like
Speaker 1: sell us cargo pants, and then Travis Scott like leapt
Speaker 1: ahead of him in norm core by being like, I've
Speaker 1: branded a regular burger. I'm gonna fucking put golden arches
Speaker 1: on merch like, and you're gonna buy it. You're gonna
Speaker 1: pay top dollar for It's a move, but Michael noted.
Speaker 1: Michael noted that it's way more likely that I would
Speaker 1: buy those shorts, those seventy dollar shorts than it than
Speaker 1: it was that I would buy the A, which itself
Speaker 1: feels like a drag of me in some way that
Speaker 1: I haven't really even unpacked yet. I don't think it is.
Speaker 1: I don't think it is. I think that I mean,
Speaker 1: what is it? I would love to just like camp
Speaker 1: out and watch like an Adam McDonald's and see what
Speaker 1: it looks like if somebody does come into order the
Speaker 1: Travis Scott Meal like, how do you ask for it?
Speaker 1: Like what do you? What do you say? And are
Speaker 1: you embarrassed when you do that? Or are you like no,
Speaker 1: this is cool? Like I think all the people, especially
Speaker 1: all of the team, all the zoomers who do it,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be like every every zoomer I've ever interacted
Speaker 1: with in Rainbow six Siege team voice chat, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like they're all the sort of I
Speaker 1: worry that there's just gonna be this onslaught of suburban
Speaker 1: kids wearing the worst clothes you can imagine, sort of
Speaker 1: with really over elaborate slang, really really really selling the
Speaker 1: bit to the cashier at McDonald's who was just so
Speaker 1: profoundly irritated. The number of people whom Cactus Jack has sent.
Speaker 1: I saw a TikTok of somebody ordering it that was
Speaker 1: really funny where it was like he was like they
Speaker 1: were filming it. I think a lot of people will
Speaker 1: probably film themselves ordering the burger, but it was like
Speaker 1: this teenager and he goes in without a mask and
Speaker 1: he's like cactu shacks at me, and then the cashier's like,
Speaker 1: you have to wear a mask. Uh, here's a mask
Speaker 1: for you and put it on. He's like catch jacks
Speaker 1: at me and they're like what He's like me, give
Speaker 1: me the Travis Scott burger. And then this woman in line,
Speaker 1: who's like a Karen starts just like going off at
Speaker 1: him and being like, what's wrong with you? You sound
Speaker 1: like a fucking dork um, and she like chases him
Speaker 1: and his friends out of McDonald's and she's like, you're
Speaker 1: such a fucking dweam. That's actually like that's a good Karen, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean whatever, I don't care about kids, order in
Speaker 1: the Travis Scott mell McDonald's. But that's actually like a
Speaker 1: funny like you're funk out of here. It was so funny,
Speaker 1: especially because she kind of looks like from behind she's
Speaker 1: wearing like yoga pants and a tie die sweatshirt. And
Speaker 1: then she turns around and it's like a different type
Speaker 1: of woman than you expect, and she's just like what
Speaker 1: are you doing? What's why are you filming in here? Like? What,
Speaker 1: what the funk is wrong with you? She doesn't funk
Speaker 1: with Travis Scott. I mean a lot of people, don't
Speaker 1: you know, there's a backlash. Yeah, So I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you specifically because you are an anime friend
Speaker 1: and you talk about animal on your podcast, and I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure you won't talk about this on your podcast
Speaker 1: anytime soon, just because it's old and there's no real
Speaker 1: reason to talk about it. But I started watching Psycho
Speaker 1: Pass this past week, which we can explain for Molly
Speaker 1: and Tests, but is kind of like it's actually too
Speaker 1: much of a nightcall show. It's almost like two on
Speaker 1: the Knows. I feel like a lot of the episodes
Speaker 1: that I'm watching, it's just like this is just like
Speaker 1: the exact stuff that we talk about every week. It
Speaker 1: almost makes me feel like, oh, like like a little
Speaker 1: bit self conscious. It's like they've already covered this ground,
Speaker 1: like all the stuff about like avatars and stuff and
Speaker 1: in some of the early episodes. But it is a
Speaker 1: show that I started watching because of the Halo, which
Speaker 1: we discussed a couple of weeks about back the Amazon
Speaker 1: Halo that is like a it's a fitness tracker or
Speaker 1: like physical activity tracker that also is supposed to claims
Speaker 1: to be able to track your tone and your mood
Speaker 1: and you know, I guess for your own elucidation about yourself,
Speaker 1: but then who knows, you know what that data could
Speaker 1: actually be used for and the concept of psychopaths and
Speaker 1: you can, yeah, fill in anything that I forget is
Speaker 1: that this happens in like a near future where everybody
Speaker 1: has a thing called a psycho pass, which is their
Speaker 1: level of like their crime coefficient. So it's sort of
Speaker 1: like Minority Report. It's like a pre crime type thing,
Speaker 1: but it's basically like based on your psychological state, your
Speaker 1: emotional state, uh, and you know, whatever level of trauma
Speaker 1: that you've been through and haven't been gone through therapy
Speaker 1: for like how likely you are to be a violent
Speaker 1: criminal or just like any kind of criminal, I guess,
Speaker 1: And then uh, based on that, like this police force
Speaker 1: can uh they have these weapons that specifically only shoot
Speaker 1: people who have a high enough crime coefficient. So it's
Speaker 1: like super super dystopian. Like there's a little bit like
Speaker 1: I feel like Watchman did something kind of like that
Speaker 1: in its first episode, where there's like a gun that
Speaker 1: you have to have like permission to use. So it's
Speaker 1: like supposed to be this utopia, this utopian world that
Speaker 1: this show takes place in, but of course it's all
Speaker 1: super super dystopian because there's just this idea of like
Speaker 1: this this system that tracks your yeah, your your emotional
Speaker 1: instability and thus you likely had to do a crime.
Speaker 1: You watched this like it's this is old. This is
Speaker 1: like from or something I watched the first season like back,
Speaker 1: uh maybe a few years after the first day or
Speaker 1: the first season. Yeah, wait, what made you want to
Speaker 1: go back to just the had you been meaning to?
Speaker 1: I've been meaning to watch it and from for a
Speaker 1: while because um Eric thum Our, our mutual friend, is
Speaker 1: a big fan of it, and I was really into
Speaker 1: an am really into Medico Magico, which is the same
Speaker 1: writer that's like a dark magical girl anime, and Psychopaths
Speaker 1: is more like a noir thriller type thing, but they're
Speaker 1: kind of about the same stuff. They end up kind
Speaker 1: of existing in similar territory. Yeah, it made me. It
Speaker 1: made me think about just like I mean, you guys
Speaker 1: talked on a recent episode just about like getting the
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, no, no, it wasn't a episode.
Speaker 1: I think you and I were just talking about like
Speaker 1: getting into an anime, like half of it is just
Speaker 1: like buying into a concept like that, like a like
Speaker 1: a sci fi conceit a lot of times yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and it being a conceit that is just I
Speaker 1: don't know. Unlike a lot of other media, I feel
Speaker 1: like anime shows don't even really bother to do that
Speaker 1: much upselling of the concept. It's just like you really
Speaker 1: buy episode one, have to be prepared to put up
Speaker 1: with some dumb sh it and it and a lot
Speaker 1: of times it works, so a lot of times it doesn't. It.
Speaker 1: Psychopass is just something that I remember the first episode
Speaker 1: of Psychopaths feeling, so I don't know, and I think
Speaker 1: that concept that show just gets over the top. I
Speaker 1: remember psychopath feeling like it gets really over the top
Speaker 1: about it's otherwise like you feel like you should be
Speaker 1: watching a procedural but it's so much Yeah, it goes
Speaker 1: to like the worst case scenario of every single corner
Speaker 1: of society. Really, like ask like somebody who like works
Speaker 1: ungodly hours at a drone factory and then like goes
Speaker 1: crazy and kills people at the drone factory. By programming
Speaker 1: the drones to kill. Like it's just all like it's
Speaker 1: taking every single box of like society to your point
Speaker 1: about concepts. So it's like it's hard to go from
Speaker 1: watching something like Psychopaths to watching I don't know, if
Speaker 1: you wait and watch the season of Sherlock, you'd be like, really,
Speaker 1: this is all you got. I just watch Psychopaths. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't go hard enough. Yeah, Um, is there anything recently?
Speaker 1: I know you've been super into Black Lagoon, but any
Speaker 1: any shows you've been into more? I mean that's the thing.
Speaker 1: I watched TV so sporadically, and this is true of
Speaker 1: even just like my animate consumption, I go through weird
Speaker 1: not weird. I think a lot of people do this,
Speaker 1: but I otherwise don't watch a lot of television except
Speaker 1: when I get to those seasons where it's just like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch eight anime series for no reason, um,
Speaker 1: and they're all going to be from the mid two
Speaker 1: thousand's through you know, the past decade, um, Like when
Speaker 1: I first watched psychopath Yeah, this is great, Like I
Speaker 1: first watched Psychopaths and Ergo Proxy, which is also feels
Speaker 1: like a nightcall show. Ergo Proxy is I've never watched
Speaker 1: Aergo Proxy, you know, what's what's the deal? I don't
Speaker 1: even remember. It's just it's one of those shows where
Speaker 1: everything feels sort of um, like techie and dystopian, and
Speaker 1: it's like, one thing that's sort of weird about the
Speaker 1: show is that Paranoid Android is the in credits music
Speaker 1: for it. Um And I remember not liking Ergo Proxy
Speaker 1: when I first saw it, But it also has a
Speaker 1: vibe to it, and it's like the perfect kind of
Speaker 1: binge watching vibe where it's you don't really feel like
Speaker 1: putting up with an anime premise so much as you
Speaker 1: feel like just sort of letting yourself wallow in a
Speaker 1: certain aesthetic, yeah, certain musical like color, yeah, moodiness aesthetic
Speaker 1: sometimes or just something really like soft and cute. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you just want to be in like a cutie show
Speaker 1: for a while a rom com Um. Black Lagoon is different.
Speaker 1: Black Lagoon is so um. It's like mid adds anime
Speaker 1: action and it has frankly, like really good race comedy.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing that I like about it, uh,
Speaker 1: because I don't know, it's like anime and Japanese video
Speaker 1: games sometimes have such a weird stilted conception of race
Speaker 1: when they're working with like American characters especially. But I
Speaker 1: really like how Black like Black Lagoon has a really
Speaker 1: good neo Nazi arc where it's just like the characters
Speaker 1: are fighting neo Nazis on a boat, okay, and it's
Speaker 1: just really good. And the the show has a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff like that where it's actually surprisingly effectively multicultural
Speaker 1: in a way that has edged to it, but not
Speaker 1: in an ill intentions way that edge usually, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It sort of feels like a gritty
Speaker 1: we are the world like vibe to it in a way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like it's picking up like the right stuff from more
Speaker 1: global action entertainment or genre entertainment or something. Doesn't watching
Speaker 1: really Dystopi and stuff make you want to curl up
Speaker 1: in a ball, though I don't know, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: There can be something kind of comforting about some stuff,
Speaker 1: And I think there is something about when it is
Speaker 1: in the medium of animation that makes it kind of
Speaker 1: go down easier. I'm not always going to be in
Speaker 1: the mood for like I mean, I still have never
Speaker 1: finished watching The Leftovers, like that just got so dark
Speaker 1: for me that it was just like not fun to watch.
Speaker 1: I understand that it gets really amazing in later seasons,
Speaker 1: but it was such a bummer. I was like, why
Speaker 1: am I doing this to myself? I had that thought
Speaker 1: at certain points in Madmen. There's something about anime where
Speaker 1: it's like there could be like grievous bodily harm, okay,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about this more is like an idea
Speaker 1: than like me putting myself through this as a piece
Speaker 1: of entertainment. So it like doesn't I mean, it's obviously
Speaker 1: like can be troubling and upsetting at times, but it
Speaker 1: just is like a different kind of experience. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how would you qualify that. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know how to describe that exactly. That to me,
Speaker 1: it's usually actually something about performances in anime that usually
Speaker 1: helped psychopaths especially. I just remember feeling like some of
Speaker 1: the performances feel strangely disconnected from what you're watching. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's always there's so many levels at
Speaker 1: which anime is like reminding you not to take it
Speaker 1: too seriously, unless it's a kind of show that really
Speaker 1: wants to be taken that seriously. I guess right, But yeah,
Speaker 1: something like Psychopaths is like a good encapsulation of that,
Speaker 1: right where it's it's premise feel super convoluted and self serious,
Speaker 1: but at the same time it's execution just feel so
Speaker 1: patently absurd that you're never gonna feel that oppressed by it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a thinker not necessarily like I am then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take this whatever idea this show is trying
Speaker 1: to get across and apply it directly to my life
Speaker 1: or anything. It's more like, let's take it. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: take it's like let's take an absurd premise, drive it
Speaker 1: all the way to its logical endpoint, and do it
Speaker 1: with the most like melo drama and you know, just
Speaker 1: like like it's yeah, it's just like emo performances in
Speaker 1: every sense of the word, uh, from every character, Like
Speaker 1: everything is just a way way dialed up. But I
Speaker 1: think the other thing that does a lot of favors
Speaker 1: to anime series, like something like Psychopaths, for instance, has
Speaker 1: multiple I think it has three seasons, but in general
Speaker 1: it's sort of stuff that's not you know, five hundred
Speaker 1: seasons stuff like Dragon Ball, right, Like it's not that
Speaker 1: uncommon for an and for something that's popular to get
Speaker 1: a single season and for the story of it to
Speaker 1: be something that needs to be sort of open and
Speaker 1: shut in a single season, and I think that that
Speaker 1: creates this dynamic where a lot of series feel like
Speaker 1: it's the people working on it getting every idea they've
Speaker 1: ever had about this premise out and leaving sort of
Speaker 1: nothing on the field. I think that's the thing too.
Speaker 1: It's just there's so much of a sense of yolo
Speaker 1: to a lot of these sort of high concept shows
Speaker 1: that it feels like it's harder to get out of
Speaker 1: live action television sometimes when it's sort of the vibe
Speaker 1: of live action television is that, oh, you're driving towards
Speaker 1: some sort of seasonal cliffhanger, and then the momentum of
Speaker 1: this is sort of indefinite, as opposed to an anime
Speaker 1: series that's like one to three seasons and you're just
Speaker 1: sort of like, we have to we're going to exhaust
Speaker 1: this concept. Yeah, there's yeah, there's not this sense of
Speaker 1: like where it's like it's not like the same. I
Speaker 1: guess it's just like a completely different system of like
Speaker 1: pitching stuff to networks or studios or whatever, Like you
Speaker 1: don't have to necessarily come in with this idea of
Speaker 1: what happens in the sixth season when you're pitching an anime.
Speaker 1: I don't imagine. I don't don't want much about it.
Speaker 1: But like I it doesn't seem like it's kind of
Speaker 1: coming out of that same sort of logic where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: walk us through the third season, like you know, you
Speaker 1: have to know the fates of all these characters in
Speaker 1: the first season. Like it's yeah, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: I I've I've talked to a lot of people about
Speaker 1: how that is can be really frustrating, you know, within
Speaker 1: the American television system, and and I feel like that's
Speaker 1: that's one thing that maybe creatively is like I don't know,
Speaker 1: more open ended or less like structured or rigorous or
Speaker 1: something about h Japanese animation. I don't know. I feel
Speaker 1: like also just like British television shows that will do
Speaker 1: like just you know, a one off in America, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the similar idea. It's like, like, what's a
Speaker 1: good idea, let's do it for like, but it's like
Speaker 1: it's kind of the inverse because that in that case,
Speaker 1: it's just like this is a sixth episode idea, Like,
Speaker 1: that's all that we need to communicate this. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: a sixth episode idea. Sometimes it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: a ten season idea. You can really just like get
Speaker 1: what you're going for, and if it's a really high
Speaker 1: concept thing, especially it's like maybe you exhausted in one season. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the last show non animated that you got into?
Speaker 1: Over over Lockdown, Over Lockdown. I haven't watched I don't
Speaker 1: know that I've watched any Oh, you know what, I
Speaker 1: just rewatched a ton of Grays with my girlfriend. That's
Speaker 1: the only watching TV, which I loved in college. I
Speaker 1: fucking loved Gray's Anatomy, and I loved it as much
Speaker 1: of fun revisiting Gray's Anatomy from the beginning of the show.
Speaker 1: I loved how you called it Grays to show familiar insiders. No,
Speaker 1: that's great, Yeah, I I kind of. I have a
Speaker 1: hard time watching stuff in Lockdown too, Like I feel
Speaker 1: like the dominant sort of assumption has been like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to do, so you're just gonna watch every
Speaker 1: TV show or go through entire series that are like,
Speaker 1: you know, eight seasons long or something. I have never
Speaker 1: I think I started off lockdown, being too anxious to
Speaker 1: like sit still through anything and even still now this
Speaker 1: is a bad habit that I don't like. Like I
Speaker 1: try to be more strict with myself about this, but
Speaker 1: now just because like everything is crazy, I don't care
Speaker 1: as much. I have to have my phone or something
Speaker 1: else to do while I'm watching something. And I used
Speaker 1: to just be like I was, I was on the screen,
Speaker 1: experience the cinematic event or whatever. Uh, And now I'm
Speaker 1: just like doing it, like I'll go in and out.
Speaker 1: I'll I'll go to the bathroom without pausing it. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm just very inattentive. Now. I feel like I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to be super into because I play
Speaker 1: video games, and I thought that at the start of
Speaker 1: all of this of like lockdowns and whatnot, that I
Speaker 1: would I just sort of assumed, like I'm gonna play
Speaker 1: so many video games. I can tell I'm gonna lose
Speaker 1: so much time to this, and I haven't. I don't
Speaker 1: have the appetite for it, and I don't even know why.
Speaker 1: Like the yeah, this all again, it's like the asumptions
Speaker 1: I had about what my media consumption would be like
Speaker 1: in the work from home tyranny I've just been wrong.
Speaker 1: Like I started baking a lot. Then I started learning
Speaker 1: some programming, but I have not gamed a ton or
Speaker 1: anything like that, which is, oh my god, we have
Speaker 1: to talk about the programming. Justin's a code or now, uh,
Speaker 1: Justin learned to code? I did, and it's like I
Speaker 1: actually do, like contrary what we're saying before. I have
Speaker 1: a Twitter account now because I needed, um, you need
Speaker 1: a Twitter account to have uh access to Twitter api.
Speaker 1: And so, like I was writing this, I've been writing, um,
Speaker 1: some small programs to like I had been writing some
Speaker 1: programs to comb Twitter for tweets about Q and on
Speaker 1: or basically like comb the q and on hashtag for tweets,
Speaker 1: and that ended up like with the spreadsheet of thirty
Speaker 1: q and on tweets, And so now I'm doing like
Speaker 1: all of this stuff where I'm trying to like data
Speaker 1: mine it. And this is all just like as an exercise,
Speaker 1: but it is also kind of funny, like staring at
Speaker 1: thirty three thousand q and on tweets and a spreadsheet
Speaker 1: and seeing like rhetorical patterns and actual tweets and in
Speaker 1: people's profiles and stuff like that and the sort of
Speaker 1: distinction between the people who are tweeting in the hashtags
Speaker 1: and serely versus the people who are like this, this
Speaker 1: is awful, Like we have to we have to put
Speaker 1: an end to que and on. These are the worst people.
Speaker 1: What's the ratio of like sincere Q and honors to
Speaker 1: Q and on critics when you look at it. I
Speaker 1: don't know yet. I haven't analyzed it yet. I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time sort of generating different searches to
Speaker 1: tweak the kind of results that I was getting. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'll let you know next week. I want
Speaker 1: to know this weekend. Yeah, I'm reading up this screenshot
Speaker 1: that you you sent me of the of the scraped tweets.
Speaker 1: I guess, uh yeah, it's like it's really hard to tell.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, I think like a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff is like is it. Did you also get people's
Speaker 1: um like profiles from this? There bioptions? Yeah, they're bios.
Speaker 1: Like everybody who says like family, God, country, constitution. That's
Speaker 1: the main thing at a glance, that's super obvious before
Speaker 1: I even like start parsing it, right, is that a
Speaker 1: lot of evangelical And it's funny. There's like a New
Speaker 1: York Time story from yesterday. Um, that's an author who
Speaker 1: is writing about this sort of connection between evangelicals and
Speaker 1: Q and on. But it's so super obvious when you
Speaker 1: start looking through the profiles of a lot of Qunan
Speaker 1: people that the people who don't just have this sort
Speaker 1: of trust the plan, you know, Q and on slogan
Speaker 1: earring the explicit Q and on slogan earring they otherwise
Speaker 1: mostly tend to have like Christian evangelical signaling. Although I
Speaker 1: have noticed a lot of wellness, wellness oriented white ladies
Speaker 1: getting into Q and on over the past month or
Speaker 1: so especially, it's gotten really crazy, really yeah. Um, and
Speaker 1: then somebody sent us a message. I think she might
Speaker 1: leave a call about it. But a lot of like
Speaker 1: Facebook mom you know, natural mom message boards, they go
Speaker 1: along this path from like, you know, anti vaxing to
Speaker 1: five G conspiracies to Q and on save the children,
Speaker 1: right and the children to save the children thing, because
Speaker 1: then people start getting an arguments being like what do
Speaker 1: you not want me to save the children? Um. A
Speaker 1: lot of times recently actually in the past couple of weeks. Um,
Speaker 1: I still am in mom groups on Facebook, which I
Speaker 1: would like to not be on anymore. But I am.
Speaker 1: And one of the tops suggested pages of like one
Speaker 1: of the bigger mom groups has been a trump um
Speaker 1: page and it says like similar topics, you know, topics
Speaker 1: similar to the one that the group that you're in.
Speaker 1: And because it's like an l a local mom's group,
Speaker 1: we're mostly liberal, but there is a small portion of
Speaker 1: the people who are in that group that are, like
Speaker 1: Molly said, um, it starts off with being like, I'm
Speaker 1: not an anti vaxxer. I just think we should be
Speaker 1: asking questions, and then it gets more into like a
Speaker 1: defensive like I don't like the term anti vaxxer, but
Speaker 1: I'm not vaccinating. Then it goes to five G and
Speaker 1: then it falls off a cliff. And I think there
Speaker 1: are a lot of moms in particular, and probably other
Speaker 1: parents as well, but who are like kind of private
Speaker 1: about those things when they talk to you in person,
Speaker 1: but on their Facebook pages, on their social media, they're
Speaker 1: pretty public about Q and on stuff, which is has
Speaker 1: been interesting in terms of like school school board dynamics
Speaker 1: and stuff like that when that becomes more public. Somebody
Speaker 1: sent me some crazy photos from a Q and on
Speaker 1: Saved the Children rally in Santa Monica in Santa mon
Speaker 1: There was one in Hollywood too, not that long. This
Speaker 1: one in Santa Monica. It was just like it looked
Speaker 1: like midsummer. It was like all these white women wearing
Speaker 1: like white dresses, like standing on the beach with these
Speaker 1: save the children signs. It was the creepiest thing I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. Yeah, it's alarming. I hate that this kind
Speaker 1: of misinformation dynamic too, is the it feels like the
Speaker 1: definitive problem of the age, right, and it sort of
Speaker 1: feels like it paints people who are like naturally a
Speaker 1: guest at that stuff into this corner of being sort
Speaker 1: of ridiculed. Is like wanting to censor everybody. But it's like,
Speaker 1: what is the actually, you know what I mean, It's
Speaker 1: it's sort of yeah, it feels like nothing about our
Speaker 1: politics is conducive to figuring out what to do about
Speaker 1: those people, you know. I mean. I've been working on
Speaker 1: a podcast episode for one of my other podcasts about
Speaker 1: the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and just how
Speaker 1: that disseminated as a conspiracy theory in the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: and it kind of makes me feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of the things we say about that it has to
Speaker 1: be this moment that makes people be like this. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: people have always been like this. Uh, even when things
Speaker 1: get debunked. That makes some people double down and be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: they want us to think it's fake, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: we know it's not really fake. I think I mean
Speaker 1: more like the tools of dissemination though, right. I think
Speaker 1: the thing that makes it feel like such a palpable
Speaker 1: political anxiety is just the fact that it's so in
Speaker 1: your because these platforms have so many of us on them,
Speaker 1: because they're the seven generators of content. There's just something
Speaker 1: that feels like it's being thrown in your face constantly
Speaker 1: about that these people want to save the children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like disagreement or dissent is the only thing that
Speaker 1: can justify like staying on these platforms a lot of times,
Speaker 1: especially with Twitter. So there has to be some sort
Speaker 1: of element of something that you're pushing against, whether that is,
Speaker 1: you know, the standard narrative that that Q and on
Speaker 1: is not real, or to you know that you should
Speaker 1: get your kids vaccinated, like like if you don't have
Speaker 1: something like it's basically like we're working our way down
Speaker 1: the list of like things that are fairly seemed like
Speaker 1: fairly common sense and and and kind of what abouting
Speaker 1: them in some way? Uh like, there will always be
Speaker 1: a community that is going to try to poke holes
Speaker 1: and something that everybody takes for granted and that like
Speaker 1: can often just look like conspiracy theory theories. But it's
Speaker 1: just like this act of contrarianism basically kind of for
Speaker 1: its own sake, because otherwise, what are you going to
Speaker 1: talk about? Yeah, and it just feels like it's like
Speaker 1: the kind of thing of if you're in a conversation
Speaker 1: that you don't know how to end with somebody and
Speaker 1: then you just keep bringing up stuff that you didn't
Speaker 1: actually want to talk about. It feels like that sometimes.
Speaker 1: I don't know that's that's actually like a very vivid
Speaker 1: way of putting that. I think, well, yeah, as long
Speaker 1: as you're on Twitter, it's like you can only post
Speaker 1: nice things about stuff that you enjoy for so long
Speaker 1: before it's like, okay, what am I fighting against now here?
Speaker 1: Which is like good and bad? Let's look good and
Speaker 1: bad thing about about that platform? Specifically, we talked about
Speaker 1: all this stuff a lot, I feel like, but I've
Speaker 1: always thought that, um, like you remember the I want
Speaker 1: to say, first wave sort of social media coverage where
Speaker 1: it was like, you would see those pieces right, where
Speaker 1: would be I don't know, a Slate columnist being like,
Speaker 1: I I left Twitter for three days, Here's what I
Speaker 1: learned in the wilderness, right, and everyone be like, he
Speaker 1: quit Twitter for three days? Right? And I always felt like, um,
Speaker 1: those pieces are kind of silly, and people made fun
Speaker 1: of them. But I feel like an assumption that was
Speaker 1: always embedded in those pieces was that the problem with
Speaker 1: Twitter was that the problem with Twitter is other people. Right.
Speaker 1: The problem with Twitter is that people say things you
Speaker 1: don't like, and the idea is that it's a house
Speaker 1: site because of other people. When I think, actually, like
Speaker 1: I love reading Twitter. The thing I dislike and the
Speaker 1: thing I distrust and the thing that it needs to
Speaker 1: be stamped out about Twitter is one's own impulse to post. Right,
Speaker 1: That's the actual problem. Like, the best version Twitter would
Speaker 1: be a word. The best version for a person, for me,
Speaker 1: at least, of Twitter is one in which you can
Speaker 1: if you want to see somebody's tweet, right, if you
Speaker 1: want to see what somebody is saying about something, you
Speaker 1: can find it. But you're liberated from the ability and
Speaker 1: thus the impulse to post. I think that's the actual
Speaker 1: bad thing. Yeah, it's like the faulk feeling of responsibility
Speaker 1: that if you're not posting, then you're not participating in
Speaker 1: a meaningful way, both on the platform and in the
Speaker 1: world in general. And that is like this completely fake
Speaker 1: dynamic that that site and the way of communicating creates. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it seems like you found the perfect solution,
Speaker 1: which is to not be on Twitter, but to create
Speaker 1: codes to scrape Q and Q and to just read
Speaker 1: thousands of quew and on tweets. That's really that's really
Speaker 1: what the ideal social media diet is. Thirty three thousand
Speaker 1: q and on tweets. You're like, I want to go
Speaker 1: right right to the part where I feel crazy. But
Speaker 1: that's the entire that's the entirety of it. You can
Speaker 1: you can just get that super concentrated espresso shot of
Speaker 1: queue and on Yeah, I mean that give me that
Speaker 1: Travis Scott burger of the mind. Oh, don't forget the sprite.
Speaker 1: That's the most insulting thing about the Travis Scott commercial,
Speaker 1: by the way, is that he's like, and by the way,
Speaker 1: just you know, the Kuda grass. The thing that really
Speaker 1: makes this reflective of me, my my personality and Brandon
Speaker 1: ethos is that you have to be sure to drink
Speaker 1: a sprite with with this meal. It's a good sprite.
Speaker 1: It was the best sprite McDonald's sprite. I can't even
Speaker 1: it's been so long. Crazy taste, yeah to me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't had sprite since. To be honest, I had
Speaker 1: a sip of sprite the other day. I was like, what,
Speaker 1: because if you go too long, like the idea of
Speaker 1: sprite and the reality of sprites are really lemon disjointed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just it tastes like like battery acid in a way,
Speaker 1: you know, because if you're if you're used to, if
Speaker 1: you if you're kind of idea of like the citrus
Speaker 1: soda was formed on sprite, and then a long time
Speaker 1: passes and you're drinking like actual like lemonade for instance,
Speaker 1: and then you reintroduce sprite. You're like, this is not citrus.
Speaker 1: This is like acid. I don't drink a lot of soda,
Speaker 1: but the sprite, Like I'll have a root beer, a
Speaker 1: coke or whatever and be like this is fine with me.
Speaker 1: But the sprite was a bridge too far. I don't
Speaker 1: have a surge. I like how sodas taste like battery acid.
Speaker 1: That's what I liked about them. That's also what I
Speaker 1: like about grapefruit juice. Yeah, I mean ting for instance,
Speaker 1: like a grapefruit soda I can deal with because it's
Speaker 1: it's closer to the flavor of the fruit than a
Speaker 1: sprite is close to the lemon lime personally. I mean,
Speaker 1: lemon lime is like a muddled flavor anyway. Grapefruit is
Speaker 1: very specific. Yeah, lemon lime is completely abstracted by by sprite.
Speaker 1: Like when you actually have something that's lemon lime, it's
Speaker 1: a completely different things like like sweet and sour mix
Speaker 1: or something in a in a bar, It's like, that's
Speaker 1: lemon lime and anything like sprite. Well, yeah, come on, guys,
Speaker 1: because sprite is a similacra exactly. I knew exactly this. UM. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you justin for joining us. Normally we ask where
Speaker 1: people can find you, but we've established pretty strongly that
Speaker 1: nobody can find you anywhere except of the Ringer dot
Speaker 1: Com em lane. I exist in the wire, didn't Yeah,
Speaker 1: the president in the wired UM and you are as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, U sound only on the Ringer Network on
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