Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to What Future. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Joshua Zapolski, and today on the show, we've got very
Speaker 1: important things to talk about. We've got very present, recent, shocking, upsetting,
Speaker 1: thrilling things to discuss, and of course talking about what's
Speaker 1: going on with Elon Muskin, Mark Zuckerberg and social media online. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot happening. There's a lot going on out there.
Speaker 1: There's a whole new landscape, and I wanted to get
Speaker 1: the world's foremost expert into the show to talk about it.
Speaker 1: So we dialed up our friend Casey Newton, who is
Speaker 1: an absolute genius and scoop machine, you might say, when
Speaker 1: it comes to social media and frankly lots of other things,
Speaker 1: and I just needed to talk to him. I had
Speaker 1: to get him here and figure out what the hell
Speaker 1: was going on. So let's get into it. Casey, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming back on the podcast.
Speaker 2: It's my sincere pleasure. Thank you for having me, josh
Speaker 2: I love that. Just be generous as always.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, anyhow, really quickly, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: what we need to talk about, which is threads. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but before that, I was telling Jenna a story and
Speaker 1: I felt I need to finish it, and you should
Speaker 1: hear it too, because you deserve it. I went to
Speaker 1: a ear nose and threads specialist today and long and
Speaker 1: long the shirt, I got a probe into that they
Speaker 1: put up my nose that went into like my throat.
Speaker 1: She's like, this will feel a little uncomfortable, and I
Speaker 1: was like, please take that out of my nose.
Speaker 2: Please take that out of my nose, Please take it
Speaker 2: out of my nose.
Speaker 1: It was supremely uncomfortable, and she was just like jerking
Speaker 1: it around in there, like snaking it around. Fucking anyhow,
Speaker 1: just that was the experience I had before the podcast.
Speaker 1: So I want you to know I'm in a pretty
Speaker 1: fragile state right now.
Speaker 2: That sounds terrible.
Speaker 1: What's what's the what's the prognosis for you have a
Speaker 1: deviated septum? No shit, Sherlock, I have a huge nose
Speaker 1: with a bump in it. So she I was like,
Speaker 1: She's like, well, you do have a little bit of
Speaker 1: a deviated septim. I'm like, really, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: by looking at my face. It's like, you didn't need
Speaker 1: to go all the way into my mouth with the
Speaker 1: probe to know that. I have a deviated She's like, anyhow, whatever,
Speaker 1: this the the prognosis is, I need to probably get
Speaker 1: some stuff done to my nose to make it more
Speaker 1: beautiful and more less Jewish.
Speaker 2: No rhinoplastic, rhino plastic.
Speaker 1: She's like, we can like clear, we can make it
Speaker 1: more clear in which is basically what I want because
Speaker 1: I can't really like breathe through it. So anyhow, so
Speaker 1: I'm excited about getting some elective surgery. Maybe, I guess
Speaker 1: because they're like, you don't need to, but you'll be
Speaker 1: more comfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker 1: Speaking of things going up your nose, Elon Musk recently
Speaker 1: tweeted that he sorry, did he and Mark say? He
Speaker 1: actually tweeted that he and Mark Zuckerberg should have an
Speaker 1: actual penis measuring contest?
Speaker 2: Is this correct? Yeah, that's right, that's where we're at.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he was sober when he.
Speaker 1: When he hits Yeah, that gome famously sober Elon, famously
Speaker 1: sober and normal person, Elon Musk. Okay, let's back up.
Speaker 1: Let's start at the beginning. Yeah, the year is nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five and Microsoft is just introduced as DAWs. No, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm like also got like no sleep last night,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to really rare I'm going a rare place.
Speaker 2: Because of your nose or because of something else. Oh,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Just everyone's just life, just the press years of life,
Speaker 1: this life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all those loose things in.
Speaker 1: Your house because yeah, and also my air conditioner is
Speaker 1: not working in here, so it's very hot, disagreed when
Speaker 1: it rains the poors. It's been pouring here actually in
Speaker 1: New York. So so well.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: For the listener who listens to the show but doesn't
Speaker 1: know what's going on on social media, which has got
Speaker 1: to be like one weird guy who accidentally subscribed to this.
Speaker 1: But can you just set up a little bit about
Speaker 1: what has just happened in the world of social media,
Speaker 1: just like in terms of I'll just say Facebook has
Speaker 1: launched a new product called Threads. Can you just talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about life? Yeah, what threads is and
Speaker 1: where it came from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Threads is a Twitter clone that was created to
Speaker 2: destroy Twitter.
Speaker 1: No, not a clone. They're like, it's not a clone.
Speaker 1: It just looks it works exactly the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've said it's not a clone. It is a clone,
Speaker 2: And within three days that had one hundred million users,
Speaker 2: and so you.
Speaker 1: Know, real quickly, sorry, real quickly, what are the active
Speaker 1: users of Twitter?
Speaker 2: Number wise? So it's very hard to say because the
Speaker 2: I lost so many users this the year and they
Speaker 2: don't report numbers publicly anymore. But let's assume it's between
Speaker 2: two and three hundred million. Okay, so in five days?
Speaker 1: Is it Threads, which is a Twitter clone that Facebook
Speaker 1: has introduced, has a third of the audience of Twitter,
Speaker 1: which has been in business for like seventeen years or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, all right, now, now we should say
Speaker 2: this number is the one hundred million for Threads is
Speaker 2: like essentially the number of people who've created an account
Speaker 2: and downloaded the app. The Twitter number is sort of
Speaker 2: active users, so it remains to be seen about hundred
Speaker 2: million how many of them are still using it in
Speaker 2: thirty days. But I think odds are good that this
Speaker 2: thing is going to be legit.
Speaker 1: Right, So so Mark Zuckerberg and who is the head
Speaker 1: of Instagram, Adam Mussiri.
Speaker 2: Odam A Siri?
Speaker 1: Yeap, Yeah, they're like Twitter is being run awfully by
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, and we could just maybe turn on a
Speaker 1: Twitter cloned and then like extinguish Twitter.
Speaker 2: Is that the idea? Do you think for threads? Yeah? Basically? So, Look,
Speaker 2: you know, it did not take long after Elon Musk
Speaker 2: took over Twitter in October of last year to realize
Speaker 2: that he was tanking it right. Every single decision he
Speaker 2: made was worse than the one that came before it.
Speaker 2: And so by December, the folks inside Facebook are saying,
Speaker 2: should we maybe just take another run at this? Because
Speaker 2: of course they had tried over the years a lot
Speaker 2: of different things to compete with Twitter, none of them
Speaker 2: had really taken off. But because Elon Musk was alienating
Speaker 2: so many at Twitter users, all of a sudden it
Speaker 2: looked like there might be this real opportunity. So they
Speaker 2: got to work in it in December, and we finally
Speaker 2: saw the fruits of their labor this month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is like pretty much like Twitter, Yeah, except
Speaker 1: the people who are popular on there are people who
Speaker 1: are historically popular for not talking and like looking like
Speaker 1: something or doing something that you look at because like
Speaker 1: it basically pourted Instagram. It's like it's connected to I
Speaker 1: think it's worth saying, yeah, And this is a brilliant
Speaker 1: strategy on their part. If there was anything in the
Speaker 1: Facebook universe. It felt like it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you've got Twitter on your home screen right next
Speaker 1: to it, there's gonna be a thing you're bouncing over to.
Speaker 1: Probably it's Instagram, right, which is a far more popular,
Speaker 1: far more used social network. I mean, it's got like
Speaker 1: a billion users, more over a billion, over a billionisers,
Speaker 1: but it's obviously a photo and now video sharing app primarily.
Speaker 1: I have already patted myself on the back on Threads.
Speaker 1: I will pat myself on the back oh my podcast.
Speaker 1: I wrote for a thing of The New Yorker about
Speaker 1: how Twitter sucked. Actually it's amazing because I went and
Speaker 1: reread it and it's like everything that sucked about Twitter
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen under Jack Dorsey. It's the same stuff
Speaker 1: that sucks under Elon Musk, but it's like way super
Speaker 1: duper magnified. It's like, yeah, you know, it's like harassment
Speaker 1: and like bad moderation and confusing policies and a product
Speaker 1: that doesn't really work that well. It's like exactly the
Speaker 1: same shit. And in that piece, I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: if Instagram wanted to like probably immediately kill Twitter, they
Speaker 1: could just make a text based version of Instagram or whatever,
Speaker 1: and it's like literally what they were like, Hey, we
Speaker 1: have a cool social network that everybody's staring at all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: So yes, that's just I think because look at the
Speaker 2: threads product today. If they have rolled it out in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, you and I would be rolling our eyes
Speaker 2: out of the back of our heads. You would have said,
Speaker 2: this is the least. We would say, They're not even
Speaker 2: trying this thing?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: One? I owte a different than Twitter? It is dead
Speaker 2: on arrival? Correct? What changed? Is Twitter tanks so hard
Speaker 2: that a bear bones copy of it run By like
Speaker 2: a sort of more competence organization, just instantly rocketed into superstartup,
Speaker 2: right it is? I mean there are some differences. We
Speaker 2: should say.
Speaker 1: It does not yet present a chronological feed, which is
Speaker 1: the business for Twitter for most users.
Speaker 2: I think, not for most, but for for a lot
Speaker 2: of die hard users. It is important to see a
Speaker 2: reverse cod.
Speaker 1: Feed for the most important ones, for the ten percent
Speaker 1: of people who create ninety percent of the content on Twitter,
Speaker 1: the chronological feed is somewhat important. True, But they say
Speaker 1: Facebook says it's coming Mata or whatever they're called these days,
Speaker 1: and also Mark Zuckerberg posts on it, which is a
Speaker 1: thing that he's not. He only has done one post
Speaker 1: in like eleven years or something on twit, and it
Speaker 1: was the Spider Man pointing at each other meme, which
Speaker 1: is like kind of I mean, poking the bowl or whatever.
Speaker 1: Whatever that's saying, is like, if you don't want to
Speaker 1: make someone think that you've copied their product, I would, personally,
Speaker 1: if I copy someone's product, I would not post on
Speaker 1: their product with a thing that's like a copy of
Speaker 1: a thing pointing to the thing that is the real thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's, you know, right, one man's opinion. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: I think the meme was funny, but also they are
Speaker 2: odd thread saying we're not trying to closee Twitter, and
Speaker 2: then you use the Spider Man meme that means, oh, look,
Speaker 2: these two things are the same, so you kind of
Speaker 2: got to pick one. Yes, exactly, No, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like if there is ever a court case, which
Speaker 1: there won't be, because like, honestly, you can't really make
Speaker 1: an argument that Twitter does anything particularly special at this point,
Speaker 1: Like it's a feed of words, which is basically every
Speaker 1: blog in the world. Like, if you really want to
Speaker 1: get down to it. It's they're small blogs. It's a
Speaker 1: micro blog, which is exactly what it would have been
Speaker 1: known as like ten years ago, and like that's not
Speaker 1: really you can't really trademark that shit at this point,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: No. Also, do you know how many patents on Facebook
Speaker 2: has around social networks and feeds and stuff? Like they
Speaker 2: both the ones they filed on the ones they've bought,
Speaker 2: like they're going to win that fight if it comes
Speaker 2: to court, which, as you point out, it's not.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, do you want us to have the
Speaker 1: conversation about who has more patents on like words on
Speaker 1: a screen or whatever the fuck it is? Yeah, So
Speaker 1: Twitter's just so fucking bad and gross and depressing and
Speaker 1: full of like Nazis and like Elon Musk fanboys and whatever.
Speaker 1: Like I hardly ever look at it. I was messing
Speaker 1: around the Blue Sky when it came out when I
Speaker 1: got I mean you were. I think I might have
Speaker 1: bullied you about using Blue Sky or something. Matt masted
Speaker 1: on the it was what I bullied you about using
Speaker 1: one of the wanna be social networks.
Speaker 2: I think it is masted On. Look, I've been I've
Speaker 2: been using all of them. It's very important to me
Speaker 2: that something to replace Twitter, because Twitter is not just
Speaker 2: a source of enjoyment for me, it's like part of
Speaker 2: how I run my business is by like posting things
Speaker 2: in public to try to get people to click on
Speaker 2: them and maybe pay the money. So I was going
Speaker 2: to be flogging all of these things, right, and you
Speaker 2: know Blue sky had its moment, but it just didn't move,
Speaker 2: you know, the sort of recurring theme of all these things.
Speaker 2: They just didn't move fast enough. And then you know,
Speaker 2: along comes Meta.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean blue skuy has like one hundred and
Speaker 1: fift thousand users, a hundred fifty thousand or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's massed on has millions, but it's like it's just
Speaker 1: a it's not like a centrally managed thing. It just
Speaker 1: feels like, you don't know what the hell. It's very
Speaker 1: hard to get started un masted on, Like just in
Speaker 1: terms of usability, right, I think like what Threads has done,
Speaker 1: besides having a built in social media ready audience, like
Speaker 1: the audience was sitting there. It's like you already are
Speaker 1: communicating probably every day with people on their other platform
Speaker 1: in that fashion. So it's just fewer pictures and more talking,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, like I don't want to like put
Speaker 1: the cart before the horse. I know everybody's like, oh,
Speaker 1: Twitter's gonna rally or whatever, but like I don't feel.
Speaker 2: No, wait, everybody is saying, like I feel.
Speaker 1: Like people I have seen people say, oh, it's the
Speaker 1: early days, you know, Well that's true. You know it's
Speaker 1: going to even out. People be less excited because this
Speaker 1: happens has happened with all that other stuff we were
Speaker 1: just talking about, Like people are like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like Blue Sky, there's the fucking articles in the New
Speaker 1: York Times about it. There's like fifty thousand people signed
Speaker 1: up for it, Like you know, it's like then it
Speaker 1: died down and everybody's like, Okay, well to Twitter, I guess.
Speaker 1: But this is like I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: the people that I want to follow and know and
Speaker 1: care about listening to on social media are already there. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's harder to find them at this point, but they're there.
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, it's not run by Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: Which this is the weirdest thing of all of this
Speaker 1: is like somehow Mark Zuckerberg has become like he looks
Speaker 1: good in this scenario, which is unheard of. For him
Speaker 1: unheard of.
Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, there's been a real sort of reversal perception.
Speaker 2: And I think it just speaks to the fact that
Speaker 2: for all of the crap that people gave Twitter over
Speaker 2: the years, much of it justified. People really did love
Speaker 2: the role that it played, right, They wanted something to
Speaker 2: play that role. Now when it started to go walkie,
Speaker 2: they missed it. And then Zuckerberg comes along and says
Speaker 2: I can do it. And the fact that he happens
Speaker 2: to be in this hugely entertaining personal feed with Musk
Speaker 2: just makes it all the better. Yeah, there's something that
Speaker 2: you haven't brought up, Josh, that I think is super important,
Speaker 2: which is the rate limiting fiasco, because it actually explains
Speaker 2: a lot I think about how we got here.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have been fairly tuned out from the rate
Speaker 1: limiting fiasco because, as I said, I have kind of
Speaker 1: abandon Twitter. Yeah, I mean I've caught a little bit
Speaker 1: of a bit I think for also for a lot
Speaker 1: of people listening, like it's fairly it's a fairly complicated
Speaker 1: little story.
Speaker 2: Can you give us the narrative? Well, you know, the
Speaker 2: gist is that for a bunch of reasons. They decided
Speaker 2: that they were going to restrict people from viewing more
Speaker 2: than six hundred tweets in a day unless you payd
Speaker 2: elon Musk money. You can only look at six hundred
Speaker 2: tweets in a day, right, And that might sound like
Speaker 2: a lot, but you know, if you're spending fifteen or
Speaker 2: twenty minutes browsing, which I don't think is a crazy
Speaker 2: amount of time to be browsing a socia, just brows
Speaker 2: while you're talking. I'll see if I can hit Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to see what happens. Yeah, just see if
Speaker 2: you can hit the limit. Go ahead, Yeah, see if
Speaker 2: you can hit the limit. And you know, you dip
Speaker 2: in and replies, you look at some profiles, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you've hit your six hundred limits. So you know,
Speaker 2: even in its decaying state, I would still have Twitter
Speaker 2: open on my desktop and just glance over it occasionally
Speaker 2: to see if there was some piece of breaking news
Speaker 2: or whatever. When the rate limiting thing happened, roughly a
Speaker 2: week from the time that we're recording this ago, it
Speaker 2: just stopped scrolling. New tweets stopped loading. You just got
Speaker 2: a message that said you've exceeded your rate limit, so
Speaker 2: it became literally worthless in the sense you couldn't even
Speaker 2: see anything that was happening there. So you know, earlier
Speaker 2: we were talking about how news junkies want that chronological
Speaker 2: feet because they want to know what's happening. Right the
Speaker 2: second Twitter actually stopped serving that purpose. So that was
Speaker 2: the moment that Meta saw and when they saw that,
Speaker 2: they said, we're going to accelerate the launch of threads
Speaker 2: by a week because we know that this is our
Speaker 2: time to strike. So they actually did something really savvy,
Speaker 2: which is they seized on the absurd opportunity that Elon
Speaker 2: Muskin created for them.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean, I'm just first off, I'm scrolling Twitter,
Speaker 1: and I honestly I'm impressed that people continue to post
Speaker 1: on here.
Speaker 2: I have to say, like, I understand there's in it's disgusting,
Speaker 2: like like I have posted a physic It's like watching
Speaker 2: people smoke. That's how I feel about it.
Speaker 1: Actually, I did not post the last episode of the
Speaker 1: show I've at like on Twitter, I will probably post this,
Speaker 1: but then I'm kind of like maybe, but like i'd
Speaker 1: probably get better engagement on threads where I have, like
Speaker 1: I don't know, seven thousand followers or something like not
Speaker 1: nearly as many, but like they're actually interacting with me
Speaker 1: and seeing my content.
Speaker 2: I'm just dying to get to this rate limit.
Speaker 1: Do you think he did the rate limiting because like
Speaker 1: he's not paying his like server bills and like they
Speaker 1: don't have enough capacity.
Speaker 2: I mean, they have been radically reducing their investment in
Speaker 2: just kind of the basic infrastructure that you need to
Speaker 2: run the site. So they went from I believe it
Speaker 2: was three data centers down to two. They may be
Speaker 2: trying to go to one, you know, a platform or
Speaker 2: my newsletter, we published a story of a month or
Speaker 2: so ago that they hadn't been paying their Google Cloud Dell.
Speaker 2: That has now been resolved. But yes, I mean I
Speaker 2: do think that there is a chance that that is
Speaker 2: the case, and we're we're actually still reporting that story out,
Speaker 2: so you know, if you're a platform subscriber, hopefully you'll
Speaker 2: learn more about that soon.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I'm very I'm very interested to learn more
Speaker 1: about all the stupid things that are happy at Twitter.
Speaker 1: I mean, is there is there what's the latest, like
Speaker 1: what's the latest piece of reporting you've done on this?
Speaker 1: Like the what's the or I don't know if you
Speaker 1: can talk about something you're working on now, but I'm curious, like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're talking anybody inside of Twitter,
Speaker 1: Like what if there's been a reaction there, I feel
Speaker 1: like you probably might be.
Speaker 2: What I can say is just that chaos continues to rain.
Speaker 2: You know, they have this new CEO, Linda Yakarino, who
Speaker 2: sort of made a big show of saying, Hey, I'm
Speaker 2: here to make this website, say for brands, and we're
Speaker 2: going to get this advertising engine spun up again. And
Speaker 2: then it was like a week later that the rate
Speaker 2: limiting thing happened, and so all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're an advertiser, like you, your reachs ben dramatically reduced.
Speaker 1: Right, You're like, oh, so you stop showing stuff after
Speaker 1: six hundred views of content? Like that's actually on that note,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of like worst website in the world
Speaker 1: doesn't do that. You know, it might break, I guess
Speaker 1: if it gets over capacity, but exactly, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean like that basically would kill ad viewability for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, right, I mean absolutely yeah. I actually
Speaker 1: kind of didn't contemplate how insane the rate limiting thing
Speaker 1: is it's like it's so bizarro. It's just such a crazy,
Speaker 1: weird move. I mean, at this point it kind of
Speaker 1: feels like, and I don't know if you have any
Speaker 1: insight on this or thoughts, but like, is Elilmo was
Speaker 1: just trying to do it in like does he just
Speaker 1: want to do value it so much that he can
Speaker 1: like get some kind of like right off, like some
Speaker 1: tax right off for it.
Speaker 2: So there's this There is this pretty good theory. There's
Speaker 2: a reporter, William Cohen at Puck who's written pretty persuasively
Speaker 2: about this that it does seem like, whether intentionally or not,
Speaker 2: that Twitter is cruising for a bankruptcy in part because
Speaker 2: it is simply not paying a lot of its debts. Right,
Speaker 2: So at a certain point a handful of its creditors
Speaker 2: can come together and say, this guy isn't paying our debts,
Speaker 2: and we can essentially force them into an involuntary bankruptcy, right,
Speaker 2: which sounds bad for Elon Musk. However, if it happens,
Speaker 2: the debt that he took on to a choir Twitter
Speaker 2: could possibly be reduced by something like thirteen billion dollars. Right, So,
Speaker 2: if Elon tanks it, he might wind up, you know,
Speaker 2: saving himself a cool thirteen billion.
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe this is a naive question to ask, but
Speaker 1: wouldn't a some kind of the governing body that handles
Speaker 1: bankruptcies be able to look at his behavior and say, well,
Speaker 1: you didn't actually try to run the company properly, like
Speaker 1: you basically decided to bankrupt it. I mean, can you
Speaker 1: because like you know what I mean, Like it seems
Speaker 1: like there'd be a law against people going like I
Speaker 1: ran my business bad on purpose, so I could bankrupt
Speaker 1: it and get out of a tax bill or whatever,
Speaker 1: get out of my debt, paying my debt. Like people
Speaker 1: would do that all the time, I would imagine, Right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're you're right, And yet I feel like, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: we live in a society where there are almost no
Speaker 2: consequences for billionaires. I don't know, it's it's concerning, as
Speaker 2: Elon mus would say.
Speaker 1: Right, and do you think the threads unfinished at that point,
Speaker 1: like when they decided to launch it, Like, do you
Speaker 1: think it was like, hey, we have an opportunity, he's
Speaker 1: really blown it. We have a product that's like good enough. Ye,
Speaker 1: do you feel like it's an unfinished product?
Speaker 2: Right? Now, yeah, I think they want to spend another
Speaker 2: week polishing it, and there was probably some stuff that
Speaker 2: might have gotten added to the product. But now they're
Speaker 2: just spending all their time trying to keep the site
Speaker 2: afloat because they did not expect to have one hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars I'm sorry, one hundred million users in three days.
Speaker 2: You don't think they did, no, but it was it
Speaker 2: was basically ready, you know. I just think it would
Speaker 2: have come out, you know, maybe a week.
Speaker 1: Later, right, Like, because you can't it's very hard to
Speaker 1: find peoplele on. It's very hard to follow people. It
Speaker 1: keeps it really wants me to follow Demi Levado like
Speaker 1: more than anything, do it.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: One of the things about Threads that has been fascinating
Speaker 1: has exposed how much like vapidity there is amongst people
Speaker 1: who post on Instagram. Like, the stuff I'm seeing on
Speaker 1: Threads is some of the all time worst posting that
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in like in my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen many varieties of bad posts, but the
Speaker 2: one that sticks with me is I keep seeing these
Speaker 2: accounts that have of like that include the word betch
Speaker 2: in their name, like Bitch with E, which was like
Speaker 2: something that like millennial women would say in the early
Speaker 2: two thousands, and I guess you know, they created these
Speaker 2: Instagram accounts. It's like dumb betch and they post this
Speaker 2: like you know, relatable like jokes like and for women,
Speaker 2: and that's fine on Instagram, but you put it on
Speaker 2: something like Twitter, and you just could not ridge harder.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, it's it's it's there's a
Speaker 1: kind of avalanche of crazy shit that I'm seeing. First off,
Speaker 1: on day one it was especially chaotic because I hadn't
Speaker 1: really followed them. It definitely is like picking up on
Speaker 1: who I'm following and then like giving me more of
Speaker 1: that stuff. But on day one it was just like, hey,
Speaker 1: we turned on all the stuff for you, like just
Speaker 1: check out what's coming out from all over threads. And
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, one thing was like Gary
Speaker 1: Vee doing some inspirational stuff about hustling, hustle culture, and
Speaker 1: then it was like a fucking f one thing.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like what's your who's your favorite f
Speaker 2: one racer?
Speaker 1: And then and then it's like accounts like you're like
Speaker 1: fuck Jerry and like the Betch the Betch accounts that
Speaker 1: are like trying to do their mean thing. They're trying,
Speaker 1: like and it's so it's like the most desperate shit
Speaker 1: because they like showed up and they're like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: I only have like forty thousand followers, and on Instagram,
Speaker 1: I have like forty million followers, and they're like the shit.
Speaker 1: Like hype Beasts, hype Piece is the one that gets
Speaker 1: under my skin the most. To be honest with you,
Speaker 1: hype Piast, which is a just if you don't if
Speaker 1: you're listening, you don't know. HiPE Piece is a brand
Speaker 1: that covers streetwear. It's on the cutting edge of fashion culture.
Speaker 1: It is like probably actually in the last like ten
Speaker 1: or you know, fifteen years, one of the most important
Speaker 1: like blogs that exists because they kind of captured this
Speaker 1: moment in streetwear that happened that kind of when it
Speaker 1: took over the fashion industry. And they are posting shit
Speaker 1: and I don't even know if the people at hype
Speaker 1: beests know that they're posting this. They're posting shit on
Speaker 1: threads like what did you have for breakfast?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Do you pour the milk in first or the or
Speaker 1: the cereal first? And I'm like, I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: not only is it not aligned with your shit at all,
Speaker 1: Like just absolutely out of alignment with what you do.
Speaker 1: But it is like the worst, dumbest, lamest, most boring
Speaker 1: posting I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's what's going on. There is a there's a
Speaker 2: land rush going on. There's a gold rush. There's a
Speaker 2: gold rush on a land that because people know that
Speaker 2: if you can get fast early on a site like this,
Speaker 2: you'll have that big follower account forever. And so you
Speaker 2: have these people that are just going hogwild, you know,
Speaker 2: like the Nike account yesterday I saw this was just
Speaker 2: like sort of served up to me. I do not
Speaker 2: follow Ikey, and it just posted a drop your favorite shoe.
Speaker 2: And this is like nobody, like, who's gonna just read like,
Speaker 2: you know, five hundred replies about favorite shoes.
Speaker 1: But they're fucking people are replying like like the uh,
Speaker 1: look at the hype beest thing, the hype beast thing. God,
Speaker 1: look at the hype I want to look at that.
Speaker 1: I want to look at the replies to this. I
Speaker 1: screenshot in one and then I reposted the other because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to I didn't want to amplify them anymore. Yeah, mourning,
Speaker 1: how do you like your eggs eight hundred and thirteen
Speaker 1: this was yesterday, eight hundred thirty replies, twelve hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty one likes. Someone fucking hit like on that no
Speaker 1: on morning Thread or cerial First or milk First, eleven
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty four replies, fifteen hundred and forty five likes.
Speaker 1: And you know what, the Highbe's account six hundred and
Speaker 1: eleven thousand followers, they're crushing. They're doing very well for
Speaker 1: themselves right now.
Speaker 2: But if you look at the ratios back, because they
Speaker 2: do have all those followers, and yet three hours ago
Speaker 2: they posted quote not even eleven am here in NYC
Speaker 2: and I'm already thinking about lunch lmao.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's only got eight hundred likes. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing, and this is true of
Speaker 1: all of these new social networks. It has made me
Speaker 1: re evaluate my existence on the Internet. Like I'm kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, like we spent I think you're
Speaker 1: probably the same way. You spent probably most of your
Speaker 1: time building your following on the Twitter. Yeah, because that's
Speaker 1: where the journalists talk like, that's where you post your story,
Speaker 1: that's where the action was, right, Like for a long time,
Speaker 1: like if you had a great scoop or if you
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to like other people in the media
Speaker 1: who you wanted to see your story or just people
Speaker 1: who were media junkies.
Speaker 2: Twitter's the place, right, that's just like where they go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now it's like again, the engagement's actually way
Speaker 1: better on almost all of these other social networks. But
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, do I even want to? And
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I'm speaking from a very rare position,
Speaker 1: like you know, I probably don't need to necessarily have
Speaker 1: a huge social media following, though my producers at the
Speaker 1: show would definitely say otherwise.
Speaker 2: And when do you say you're speaking from a special
Speaker 2: position do you mean as someone with a.
Speaker 1: Dev I mean it's someone who has been probed today
Speaker 1: and has a deviate to abdom you know, it's funny
Speaker 1: when but after the probe and I was like, I think,
Speaker 1: like that helped a little bit, Like maybe I should
Speaker 1: just be probing. Maybe that's what I need in my life. No,
Speaker 1: Like I'm like at a point I think in my
Speaker 1: career and with what I do, like I I think
Speaker 1: I can just do what I do and not have
Speaker 1: to worry too much about like whether somebody saw like
Speaker 1: my story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're above you know you don't need these
Speaker 2: unwashed me.
Speaker 1: I'm in the smoky, the leather chair filled smoke smoke
Speaker 1: filled rooms where the I'm in the room where it
Speaker 1: happens currently.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, Peter TiAl doesn't post, and either does
Speaker 2: Dosh Dapolski. Okay, guys, they made it.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right, we don't. And when we meet for
Speaker 1: when we meet for our special club of very important people, for.
Speaker 2: Your infusions of twink blood. Yeah, it's so great not posting,
Speaker 2: isn't it. God, I'd love to.
Speaker 1: I would love to spend even a little bit of
Speaker 1: time with Peter Teal would be so fucking weird.
Speaker 2: He loves talking to I don't think he'd do it.
Speaker 2: I don't think you'd do it.
Speaker 1: But hey, Jenna, can you put on the list after
Speaker 1: our FK Junior and uh Liver the liver Man? Is
Speaker 1: that with the guy the guy we were talking about
Speaker 1: last week? Can you have add Peter Teal to the
Speaker 1: podcast bookiet list? Thank you anyhow? Yeah, So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like it's interesting, but like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: many followers do you have on threads?
Speaker 2: And this is not.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to I'm not trying to do a
Speaker 1: dick measuring competition like on Moscow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well let me just whip this out, John, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it out. I've got a twenty six thousand. That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I'm kind of like, do I want to put
Speaker 1: and this is I think an interesting question for a
Speaker 1: lot of people actually, And I feel like Twitter and
Speaker 1: tell me a few senses or feeling at all. The
Speaker 1: Twitter has accelerated this feeling of insane fatigue, social media fatigue,
Speaker 1: and like this idea of like do I need to
Speaker 1: be looking at this shit? And do I want to
Speaker 1: be looking at this shit? And like is it healthy
Speaker 1: or is it doing anything for me? My feeling has
Speaker 1: been like over the last couple of years, but especially
Speaker 1: since Elon took over Twitter, I'm like, I think I
Speaker 1: just don't I can just not look at it and
Speaker 1: it's okay, Like I'm okay, Well.
Speaker 2: I think you're getting at something real. Which is that
Speaker 2: a lot of the appeal of social networks, particularly new
Speaker 2: social networks, it is they are a place where people
Speaker 2: can build status and clout. You can't establish yourself, you
Speaker 2: can gain a reputation for something. Maybe that even turns
Speaker 2: to money for you if you associate it with some
Speaker 2: sort of business. Right. And then there are other people
Speaker 2: and let's we could, for example, just call them like
Speaker 2: people in their forties who have already achieved their status
Speaker 2: and their clout and so they don't need to race
Speaker 2: it age us. But they feel bad because they know
Speaker 2: that it is actually cool to participate in new social networks.
Speaker 2: So they just feel the spiritual exhaustion of not needing
Speaker 2: to participate, but realize that not participating indicates that they've
Speaker 2: given up on their lives.
Speaker 1: You think it's an age thing, that's interesting. I think
Speaker 1: it's more like a amount of time I've been blanched
Speaker 1: in social media. I feel like I've been I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, you you put the they put someone put
Speaker 1: the spinach in.
Speaker 2: You know it.
Speaker 1: It's a big full Yeah, it's a huge amount of spinach,
Speaker 1: and then it's just been in the water for a
Speaker 1: pretty long time and now there's just one little tiny
Speaker 1: speck of spinach in there. That's how I've my feeling
Speaker 1: is about social media in general. And I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's my age. Obviously, I've been doing
Speaker 1: it a long time. But I also think it's like
Speaker 1: social media doesn't feel like it's getting better and more interesting.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's getting less good and less interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's as good or it's as interesting
Speaker 2: as it ever was. I think it just sort of
Speaker 2: depends on you know, where are you in your life?
Speaker 2: What role is this play? Huh see?
Speaker 1: I disagree with that because I think there's this general
Speaker 1: fatigue with like the amount of stuff that people have
Speaker 1: been getting in there, like in their diet generally.
Speaker 2: Douch, No, you're insane. You're insane, Josh. One hundred million
Speaker 2: people didn't just download this app in three days because
Speaker 2: of their social media fatigue about account love the slop
Speaker 2: that's coming out. Okay, but you know that's a that's
Speaker 2: a qualified audience. Okay.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm saying, Like, you're not. It's
Speaker 1: not one hundred million new it's not one hundred million
Speaker 1: new people. It's a hundred million people from Instagram. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's not they're not brand new. They didn't they didn't
Speaker 1: happen by Do you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Is that your standard that in order for me to
Speaker 2: prove that there is no social media fatigue a hundred
Speaker 2: million people who've never tried social media before in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three after year.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying like, and I'm not trying to agree
Speaker 1: with Elon Musk or anything here, by the way, I'm
Speaker 1: saying that, but.
Speaker 2: You interesting ideas about western You have a big He's.
Speaker 1: Got some interesting ideas. He's got some very interesting ideas,
Speaker 1: as do his followers. I'm saying that if you have
Speaker 1: an audience of one billion people, which is what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do, You're like, hey, guys, do you want
Speaker 1: to try this new thing we're doing, and a hundred
Speaker 1: million people do try it, I'm not at impressed as
Speaker 1: if you are, like, here's a new thing that you
Speaker 1: have to sign up for. I think there is a difference.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just saying I believe there's a difference.
Speaker 1: And I think that if you looked at the weight
Speaker 1: of new sign ups to threads versus people who came
Speaker 1: over from Instagram imported their account, it's probably like ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent people from Instagram.
Speaker 2: I mean sure, But also like Meta launches new apps
Speaker 2: all the time and no one ever uses them. I
Speaker 2: mean this is the first hint that they have had
Speaker 2: in years.
Speaker 1: No, it's true, But there again, I'm the agree I
Speaker 1: think they've done a masterful move here, and I agree
Speaker 1: that I don't think that like everybody's like fuck social media.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that the one hundred million number
Speaker 1: isn't significant because it is super significant. It's insane. I
Speaker 1: do think there is it is a perfect storm. I
Speaker 1: do think that a lot of the people who are
Speaker 1: on Twitter feel like it is degraded in quality. Plus,
Speaker 1: it's very easy if you already are on another social
Speaker 1: network to get onto Threads. Like there's no waiting list,
Speaker 1: there's no fucking sign up for a weird It's literally like, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to check this out? And like you
Speaker 1: hit a button and then you're on Threads. It literally
Speaker 1: imports your bio and your photo and everything, right, So
Speaker 1: it's like very plug and play in that sense. So
Speaker 1: I think it's the test of time is what I'm
Speaker 1: sort of more talking about with Threads, like will it
Speaker 1: become a thriving, enjoyable social media experience, Like I think
Speaker 1: we can all argue for the most part that Instagram
Speaker 1: has has found a way to become for the most part,
Speaker 1: an enjoyable social media experience, even in the face of
Speaker 1: all this bullshit. TikTok clearly an enjoyable social media experience,
Speaker 1: even in the face of all this bullshit, there's not
Speaker 1: a lot Snapchat, I guess still has an audience. Twitter
Speaker 1: is fucking now. Twitter's on its way out one way
Speaker 1: or another. I think it's not going to come back.
Speaker 1: I don't think it comes back. But does Threads become
Speaker 1: does it actually become like a new Twitter?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've written in the past about this
Speaker 2: idea of like pop up social networks, which are kind
Speaker 2: of like pop up restaurants in your neighborhood, where basically
Speaker 2: they're serving the same ingredients you've had at other places,
Speaker 2: but because it's new and it's shiny, the food flock
Speaker 2: there and they rave about it on Yelp, and for
Speaker 2: like ten minutes, it seems like the biggest deal in
Speaker 2: the world. But then eventually everyone goes back to the
Speaker 2: restaurants that they used to hear at, and that was
Speaker 2: a case of like and l and mastedon. Yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: you know. So, But here's the thing, Like, I don't
Speaker 2: think Threads is the crow neut because it already has
Speaker 2: this critical mass of users who actually wanted to succeed.
Speaker 2: Right Like when peeter Elo came along, we already had
Speaker 2: working social networks. There wasn't this hunger for a replacement
Speaker 2: for any of them, and so they kind of faded away.
Speaker 2: Twitter is in a literal dust spiral. You can only
Speaker 2: look at it like fifteen minutes a day before it explodes.
Speaker 2: Who knows that the Apple will even load when you
Speaker 2: tap it on your phone. So we are just in
Speaker 2: a different world than we were in when those other
Speaker 2: networks launch. It's it's always risky to make a bet
Speaker 2: about what's going to happen to a social network on
Speaker 2: day four, But like, is there a chance that this
Speaker 2: thing has the juice? Yes, there is a chance.
Speaker 1: For the first time ever, I want something that Facebook
Speaker 1: is doing to succeed, Like I'm actually liked. No, man,
Speaker 1: let's do it because it's it is God, I almost
Speaker 1: said tweeted again, what are we saying threaded? Is that
Speaker 1: what we're saying threatened? I don't think that works. That
Speaker 1: doesn't fit.
Speaker 2: I posted.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's good. I don't think that's what
Speaker 1: Masari wants. I don't think he likes that I think
Speaker 1: he's going to remove that. That's gonna be an instant removal.
Speaker 1: I threaded or posted a where the fuck I did.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is a real the enemy of
Speaker 1: my enemy is my friend situation, And I really do
Speaker 1: feel strongly. It's like such a strange sensation to be like,
Speaker 1: I want this to work pretty badly, Like I like
Speaker 1: Twitter when it was good, Like there were parts of
Speaker 1: Twitter actually before the Nazis really went. I mean, they
Speaker 1: were always kind of going wild on Twitter, but they
Speaker 1: there was a period like you know, during the Trump era,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of Trump, it really got fucking bad
Speaker 1: on Twitter, like it was unfun. And I would say,
Speaker 1: since then, it's been pretty unfun. Yeah, but before that,
Speaker 1: it was like a lot of fun, Like you could
Speaker 1: have a lot of fun on Twitter, and there's still
Speaker 1: pockets of it, Like I definitely want a place where
Speaker 1: like people are gonna make stupid, weird Internet jokes, Like
Speaker 1: I would say, the thing I miss most about looking
Speaker 1: at Twitter is people making fucking weird like drill shit.
Speaker 1: That's just you honestly can't make the joke in any
Speaker 1: other way. It's just that particular forum, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to win, but like, also I hate
Speaker 1: myself because I know it means Mark Zuckerberg is gets
Speaker 1: more of my data and more of my time.
Speaker 2: To me. This is like a there's like a two
Speaker 2: part equation. Okay, Like the first part of the equation
Speaker 2: is Twitter needs to die, like it just needs to
Speaker 2: completely disappear from like polite society. And that's step one.
Speaker 2: Step two is we will bring all of the criticism
Speaker 2: and all of the scrutiny to threads that we had
Speaker 2: previously been bringing into threads on all the other social
Speaker 2: net works. Like I truly believe there will be time.
Speaker 2: I also think that MATTA has learned a lot of
Speaker 2: lessons from its previous five or six years of disasters,
Speaker 2: and so hopefully they'll be able to mitigate some of
Speaker 2: those problems. But like it's a let's just get the
Speaker 2: order of operations straight. Job one is to kill Twitter, right, yes,
Speaker 2: and I think pretty good jobs so far, amazing job.
Speaker 2: But like obviously from an audience size, and I was
Speaker 2: gonna say, Zuckerberg posted this thing about how they haven't
Speaker 2: even done any like promotions yet, which I think is
Speaker 2: an interesting It's kind of like he's saying, like, you know,
Speaker 2: we need one hundred million just by turning it on.
Speaker 2: What would happen if we actually told other people about it, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that's what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what would happen if we tried? Yeah, so what
Speaker 1: will happen? I think if they can get to the
Speaker 1: if they can get the rest of the Twitter people.
Speaker 1: But can you have a Twitter competitor or killer without
Speaker 1: the Nazis? I guess that's the ultimate question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, Instagram's community guidelines are actually
Speaker 2: much more restrictive than Twitter. So you know, as you've
Speaker 2: probably been wondering why you're not able to post whole
Speaker 2: on thought and the reason keeps getting keeps getting bounced,
Speaker 2: keeps getting flagged. Yeah yeah, well the reason is, you know,
Speaker 2: you can't post nudity on Instagram and so you can't
Speaker 2: post it on threads. So I mean, look, they make
Speaker 2: decisions I disagree with. They gave Rfki Junior his account
Speaker 2: back just because he ran for president. So I'm sure
Speaker 2: there's gonna be problematic actors on there, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's gonna be much better, I think, than it
Speaker 2: was on Twitter.
Speaker 1: So it's funny because I on on Blue Sky, I
Speaker 1: posted something about like we were there's some conversation going
Speaker 1: on about moderation, right, and it was like the Blue
Speaker 1: Sky people have been very like, weirdly cagy. They're good,
Speaker 1: I mean, they want to moderate the bad shit out
Speaker 1: of there, but they've been kind of cagy and careful
Speaker 1: about how they talk about it. And I'm like, I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't understand. Like Instagram, which people fucking love,
Speaker 1: is like one of the craziest moderation situations I've ever experienced.
Speaker 1: Like you can literally like get your shit taken off
Speaker 1: of Instagram for like saying like putting the word dead
Speaker 1: in a post or something like it is. I mean
Speaker 1: I don't even mean in text, I mean like in
Speaker 1: an image, like if the word People like are crossing
Speaker 1: out words like in their posts because they don't want
Speaker 1: to get like dinged and have their shit pulled down.
Speaker 2: And yet weirdly, it's a very enjoyable experience. Like I
Speaker 2: look at.
Speaker 1: Instagram all the time, and I know, like, well, home,
Speaker 1: I can't see nud to you or how come I
Speaker 1: you know, can't hear people talking about like killing people
Speaker 1: or whatever. I'm like, Wow, this sucks my two favorite
Speaker 1: things nudity and murder threats.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Of course I don't follow a lot of political accounts
Speaker 1: on there. I fall some meme accounts, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fucking enjoyable, and it's like, maybe discourse doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be like this free speech shit is overrated basically.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, that's basically what they've said is, you know,
Speaker 2: because all the journalists are sort of like, yay, a
Speaker 2: place to post our links and do journalism. And Adamisaria
Speaker 2: did this sort of widely uh discussed post where he said,
Speaker 2: we know there's gonna be journalism on here, but we're
Speaker 2: doing nothing to encourage it. We do not want to
Speaker 2: be like the throbbing heartbeat of the daily news cycle.
Speaker 2: And honestly, I think that that is mostly just marketing, right,
Speaker 2: because they have no control over what people are posting,
Speaker 2: and people want to share news there. People are going
Speaker 2: to share news there, right. But I do think it
Speaker 2: speaks to the fact that they like the fact that
Speaker 2: news has become a much smaller part of their products
Speaker 2: over time, and they hope that continues.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean, I think what he was saying
Speaker 1: in some way was more like a signal to like
Speaker 1: the market than than anything else. It's like, yeah, I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't see. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe they do this already.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much Meta is suppressing like news
Speaker 1: content or I don't know, are they down are they?
Speaker 1: Do you think they would go so far as to
Speaker 1: downrank journalists or to like suppress news links that are
Speaker 1: being widely shared?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so. One thing that they will absolutely
Speaker 2: just have to decide is what kind of weight are
Speaker 2: they going to give to links as they are shared? Right,
Speaker 2: some some networks are sort of treat those as neutral,
Speaker 2: and other networks say like no, like we want you
Speaker 2: to stay on the site, and so if it includes
Speaker 2: a link, we're going to show it less. So that
Speaker 2: is something that they could do. You know, it may
Speaker 2: be that this winds up not being a great place
Speaker 2: to share news. But you know, again us the news,
Speaker 2: because I'm so far zero on that. I've been this
Speaker 2: whole NonStop pole posted just getting rejected. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: talking about the news, you know. But again, if I
Speaker 2: think that even though they say they don't want it
Speaker 2: to replace Twitter's function as kind of the like the
Speaker 2: newsroom of the world, I think if it became the
Speaker 2: newsroom of the world. They would find a way to
Speaker 2: get excited about it, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: they want what everyone else wants, which is status and money,
Speaker 2: And if they can get status and money from being
Speaker 2: the world's newsroom, they will be the world's newsroom. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think it seems to be trending,
Speaker 1: at least in the direction that it has the same
Speaker 1: basic functionality as Twitter. If you are a person who
Speaker 1: does news, like you can go on here and like
Speaker 1: post a news link and it doesn't like as far
Speaker 1: as I know, it's not like knocking them down a
Speaker 1: peg or something, and it seems like they're just links, right.
Speaker 1: I hear that there are like right wing people on it.
Speaker 1: I have not seen any really. I went to ban
Speaker 1: or sorry not banned, to block some people who I
Speaker 1: did not definitely not want to see who are on it,
Speaker 1: like George Santos for instance, who I just I don't
Speaker 1: need to hear anything from him whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Oh, really, you don't like a gay elected officials, Josh?
Speaker 2: I Uh, what I hate most is his gayness.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I I love that he's gay. I hate everything else.
Speaker 1: I'm a big, big on his a big fan of
Speaker 1: his being gay just not a fan of all the
Speaker 1: other stuff. He was simply just gay, that would be great,
Speaker 1: But he's so much more complex than that. And I
Speaker 1: think that's true of many in the community. Honestly, when
Speaker 1: you when you think about that, it's it's a divers
Speaker 1: and complex community of people who are you know, some
Speaker 1: people are gay, some people are gay, and a bunch
Speaker 1: of other stuff like George Santos. No, but like but yeah,
Speaker 1: but like is it do you get a sense that
Speaker 1: like the truth social folks or the Twitter people are
Speaker 1: like flying over to like occupy their space or are
Speaker 1: they like, hey, soon we can have all of Twitter,
Speaker 1: which they don't realize how it will actually be.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, well, the best was that some of
Speaker 2: Elon's minions, like the people who were falling all over
Speaker 2: themselves to suck up to Elon when he took over Twitter.
Speaker 2: There was kind of this question of how long will
Speaker 2: they be able to resist joining threads because it's clear
Speaker 2: that that's where the action is going to be. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and number one on that list was Jason Kalakano. Yeah,
Speaker 2: advisor to Elon, and Jason didn't even make it forty
Speaker 2: eight hours before he joined Threads to you know, take
Speaker 2: some patcha yeah.
Speaker 1: So to make fun of Zuckerberg, but like you're here,
Speaker 1: You're here, you showed up.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. So it's like even the people that
Speaker 2: are like Elon is, you know, he's mister business genius
Speaker 2: and he's gonna prove you all wrong. Even those people
Speaker 2: are ready to abandon ship. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm loving I mean, I am loving that shit. I
Speaker 1: have to say from a from a crow eating perspective,
Speaker 1: it is a very very delicious meal to witness. All right,
Speaker 1: so we really quickly, we gotta we do have to
Speaker 1: wrap up. Although I am enjoying, I gotta say, Casey,
Speaker 1: it is. It is so fun to talk to you.
Speaker 1: It is just like you just a giggle f I
Speaker 1: love talking to you.
Speaker 2: It's a good it is. Give me a.
Speaker 1: Prediction, lay it out. Where do you see this all headed?
Speaker 1: Give me give me the year ahead for Threads and Twitter.
Speaker 2: So I predict that at this time next year, Threads
Speaker 2: will be the biggest text based social network, and I
Speaker 2: think it will have largely supplanted the role that Twitter
Speaker 2: plays in the news ecosystem today. So that is my
Speaker 2: actual approsse.
Speaker 1: Okay, you stand, you'll stand by you feeling good, you
Speaker 1: feeling good about that, you can stand by that prediction.
Speaker 2: I think it just all the ingredients are in place
Speaker 2: and all of the right people want it to app.
Speaker 2: It would be one thing if only Meta wanted this,
Speaker 2: Like what Meta wants actually matters the least. What matters
Speaker 2: is that the user base want the fact that like
Speaker 2: you a person, you know, you've been very critical of Facebook.
Speaker 2: I've been very critical of Facebook. I talked to other reporters.
Speaker 2: They're all saying the same thing, which is, thank god
Speaker 2: this thing is here. Yeah, those people who are who
Speaker 2: are the most likely to have said screw this whole thing,
Speaker 2: are all in. I think it wins.
Speaker 1: It is very deranged. It is a little bit of
Speaker 1: a so so, okay, where is Twitter In a year
Speaker 1: from now.
Speaker 2: Twitter is going to be like, here's the thing. The
Speaker 2: app will still exist. I think I'm not sure that
Speaker 2: I would confidently predict this, but I think there's a
Speaker 2: very good chance that it is bankrupt. And I think
Speaker 2: that a year from now Elon Musk is seriously exploring
Speaker 2: how to unwind his ownership of the app.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that checks out for sure. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean this all sounds right. To me, I have very
Speaker 1: little to disagree with. I feel like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I would be more sad. I guess, like, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: A part of me is just like realizes that recognizes
Speaker 1: that if we want to use a social media platform
Speaker 1: of some type, it's not I mean, I understand the
Speaker 1: whole like fetaverse and the masset On thing, and that's cool.
Speaker 1: Like if they can make it work, well I'm totally
Speaker 1: into it and I'll keep posting there or whatever. But
Speaker 1: like I think we all acknowledge like whether it's Jack
Speaker 1: Dorsey or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, like one of
Speaker 1: these people that we probably wouldn't love to hang out
Speaker 1: with in person, wouldn't make you know, wouldn't make a
Speaker 1: best friend, and have nefarious, kind of shitty reasons for
Speaker 1: doing the business they do, are going to run the
Speaker 1: social network, whatever one it is, it's going to be
Speaker 1: some person like that. So I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, yeah, do I care if in
Speaker 1: this case, like I clearly don't care in the case
Speaker 1: of Instagram, Do I care in this case if like
Speaker 1: it's owned by Mark Zuckerberg versus Ela Muskin, Like, but we.
Speaker 2: Haven't even talked about the fact that it's decentralized, which
Speaker 2: is the actual answer that, well, like, you're going to
Speaker 2: be able to set up your own server and you're
Speaker 2: going to be able to have your posts appear on
Speaker 2: threads even though Meta doesn't operate it.
Speaker 1: They say that. They say that, and I think there's
Speaker 1: a common belief that they are doing that partially because
Speaker 1: if they basically make it a part of the fetiverse,
Speaker 1: right is what would happen. They can basically get away
Speaker 1: with doing whatever moderation they want. They say, Hey, no,
Speaker 1: you can the post here, you can set up your
Speaker 1: own server and your own rules and bob blah blah,
Speaker 1: and then they don't have to worry about being the
Speaker 1: arbiters of free speech or whatever on their own rock.
Speaker 1: Which is a good answer to that problem, by the way,
Speaker 1: it's a great answer, and it's it's the one we're
Speaker 1: all looking for.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: I also feel like, I don't know, it's a little
Speaker 1: bit like if nobody cares that much about the moderation,
Speaker 1: which I feel like it's possible, like maybe nobody really
Speaker 1: at this point will care that much. People care, like
Speaker 1: you don't hear the right wing people being like Instagram
Speaker 1: suppressing my I mean, Donald Trump Junior, I think did ye.
Speaker 2: But I read about content moderation all the time. This
Speaker 2: is such a perfect all time case study because people
Speaker 2: are leaving Twitter because it did not have content moderation.
Speaker 2: Like the failure of content moderation on Twitter created the
Speaker 2: opportunity for threads. You got one hundred million US.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, the idea that whatever, well, first off,
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't a free speech utopia. It was
Speaker 1: the speech that Elon Musk likes best, which is like weird,
Speaker 1: weirdly anti semitic and racist and like really.
Speaker 2: Bad transphobic a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, super transphobic, like just fucking weird bad, Like
Speaker 1: you could just not say shit, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: if I were the richest man in the world, if
Speaker 1: I if which I think he is now currently, I
Speaker 1: would simply not post my personal feelings about things on
Speaker 1: the Internet. I would just keep them to myself because
Speaker 1: I could just change those things. I could just literally
Speaker 1: buy the thing and get rid of it if I
Speaker 1: didn't like it. This is what we all think, but
Speaker 1: all the billionaires do wind up posting.
Speaker 2: I think it's one of the only ways they can
Speaker 2: feel like Jos supposed to become a certain reson.
Speaker 1: You saw the what do you drink for a hangover?
Speaker 1: Or what do you eat after a hangover? Asking for
Speaker 1: a friend or whatever. I'm sorry, dude, I'm you gotta
Speaker 1: get another fucking hobby. Like you do not need to
Speaker 1: be on social media. You're Jeff Bezos, like buy a country,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, like find something fun to do
Speaker 1: this chrassty you know what?
Speaker 2: You know how that one episode of House of the Dragon,
Speaker 2: the like princesses like put on disguises and go mingle
Speaker 2: with the comedy folk like that, That's what Jeff Bezos
Speaker 2: was also kind of the plot of a lad and
Speaker 2: I now realize and it was also famous the plot
Speaker 2: of Aladdin. Yeah, I hope that the creators of House
Speaker 2: of Dragon answer for that anymore youth. Yes, seriously, they
Speaker 2: need to be brought to justice, you think.
Speaker 1: Sorry, just to be clear, you think they like it
Speaker 1: because they get to mingle with the commoners.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying? They want to feel somethdate,
Speaker 2: what's your a certain level of rich? You cannot feel
Speaker 2: anything anymore. There are no comps.
Speaker 1: You could do whatever you want. There are no consequence
Speaker 1: to pay to feel something. They can get someone to
Speaker 1: make them feel. So I don't know, Man, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: No, they want that little hit. It's it's the adrenaline
Speaker 2: rush them. I'm gonna go step out of the public
Speaker 2: square and maybe they're gonna throw egsit me, but maybe
Speaker 2: they'll think I'm really yes.
Speaker 1: So man, it'd be so cool if they had something
Speaker 1: interesting to say. Imaginef they stepped out of the public
Speaker 1: square and said cool shit. Like it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to imagine, right, Like like what like, man, the Ramones
Speaker 1: were great in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know because I guess I'm not them, but
Speaker 1: I would definitely say something like other than the trans
Speaker 1: people shouldn't exist or whatever the thing they came up with,
Speaker 1: like or should I drink? What should I eat after
Speaker 1: a hang for a hangover? Like I'm sorry, Like it's
Speaker 1: got to be some other thing to say. Yeah, anyhow,
Speaker 1: all right, I think we got to wrap up here.
Speaker 1: I think we've devolved into I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know what we've devolved into.
Speaker 2: Casey.
Speaker 1: As always, this has been absolutely delightful, so fun and educational. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I got a lot of information,
Speaker 1: but it was presented in a way that was digestible
Speaker 1: and enjoyable. And I think like, that's one of your talents.
Speaker 1: You can just put you put it out there. But
Speaker 1: people are like, that's great.
Speaker 2: I get it. I understand it. Casey made it. Casey
Speaker 2: made me understand I love it. I love what I do.
Speaker 2: It's you're the best. You'll have to come back.
Speaker 1: Again in a year. Now, you're gonna come back soon
Speaker 1: to the in a year, but for sure we should
Speaker 1: mark this date down. We're going to do it, revisit
Speaker 1: this in one year, and we can get to see
Speaker 1: how close you were on your predictions, which I think
Speaker 1: will be ah, really exciting. I love it. Let's find out,
Speaker 1: all right, And then in the meantime, follow a Casey
Speaker 1: on threads. He's at Crumbler. Crumbler isn't Crumbler. It's not great,
Speaker 1: It's not great. I really should have just gotten my
Speaker 1: full name.
Speaker 2: Is it Sea Rumbler? Is that it's Crumbler. It's Sea Rumbler. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I wanted to use their name. That Ryan was Tumblr,
Speaker 2: which was very hot in twenty ten when Instagram launched
Speaker 2: so and you can also follow me. I'm just Joshua
Speaker 2: Zapolski because I just decided at one point I was
Speaker 2: gonna use my full giant, horrible name every on every
Speaker 2: social network, which was ultimately genius Day. But no, no,
Speaker 2: it is what it is.
Speaker 1: And anyway, check us out on threads. We're dropping some
Speaker 1: sick posts on there, both of us. I mean, just
Speaker 1: incredible content.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell us which way you put put the milk
Speaker 2: in here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're like, I just dropped a big bod. It's
Speaker 1: is a hot dog of sandwich. It's getting a lot
Speaker 1: of get a lot of heat right now.
Speaker 2: It got a lot of I think. Fuck.
Speaker 1: Jerry actually just stole it and posted it on their thread,
Speaker 1: so it's it's really heating up out there.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much. This is super fun. You
Speaker 2: got to come back and do it again. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: have you anytime.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we've learned a lot here. I think
Speaker 1: we've learned a lot on the show. I think what
Speaker 1: we now know is that if Casey and I podcasts together,
Speaker 1: we will giggle like little children for most of it.
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming annoying the listener tremendously, but also I
Speaker 1: think we've solved the riddle of social media, and that's
Speaker 1: a you know, that's huge for us. I think we
Speaker 1: have personally made some great strides in helping humanity move
Speaker 1: towards it's the next stage of evolution, where we will
Speaker 1: all become glowing orbs of pure thought and communicate by telepathy,
Speaker 1: or we'll just all be using threads, you know, which
Speaker 1: is almost the same thing.
Speaker 2: Well, that is our show for this week.
Speaker 1: We will be back next week with more what future,
Speaker 1: and as always, I wish you and your family the
Speaker 1: very best.