Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of Trends
Speaker 1: So Good. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, trends Yes
Speaker 1: yes yes balloon Hello, I'm Jack. That is super producer
Speaker 1: Becca Ramos. And for people who haven't seen that video,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be confused, I guess a little bit.
Speaker 2: But we're gonna talk about it.
Speaker 1: So as were we all? Should we just kick off
Speaker 1: with that, because I guess.
Speaker 2: So we started there, we should.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was on my list of like, oh, we
Speaker 1: forgot to talk about that this week over the weekend,
Speaker 1: and then I lost that list and then we forgot
Speaker 1: to talk about it again this week. But it is
Speaker 1: this video of a person on TikTok, a woman who
Speaker 1: has a cowboy hat and a mustache in like for
Speaker 1: a moment, like a graphic over, and then the main
Speaker 1: chunk that I think people chose to to like I
Speaker 1: think it went viral on Twitter, was her saying ice
Speaker 1: cream so good. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes, and
Speaker 1: it just.
Speaker 2: Her name is Pinky Doll. By the way, her.
Speaker 1: Name, yes, I should do not erase Pinky Doll. So
Speaker 1: Pinky Doll is somebody who's part of a TikTok trend
Speaker 1: that Becca as a resident TikTok expert, I am asking
Speaker 1: you to explain to me, and you I asked you,
Speaker 1: and you just put your head in your hands and
Speaker 1: began weeping. So that is.
Speaker 2: Truly how it's felt going down this rabbit hole. I
Speaker 2: actively tried to avoid it on TikTok because I kept
Speaker 2: seeing it pop up and I was like, what is this?
Speaker 2: And then I saw more people making fun of it,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I simply, is it above my head?
Speaker 2: I don't understand, and then I and then I. The
Speaker 2: thing that made me bring it up was I got
Speaker 2: to serve to TikTok saying, oh, this is actually fetish,
Speaker 2: and I was like, of course it is. But obviously
Speaker 2: no claims have been you know, confirmed or denied. What
Speaker 2: this is. It is basically people TikTokers pretending to be NPCs,
Speaker 2: which are non playing characters right AI video.
Speaker 1: Game, like the background characters who just respond to stimulus
Speaker 1: and do the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 2: Yes, which there have been other trends on TikTok of
Speaker 2: like NPC vibe, but they've been more in the vein
Speaker 2: of showing outfits like choose your character and then it's
Speaker 2: like right, So and then people like change all these
Speaker 2: different outfits to be different characters that type of thing.
Speaker 2: But this has been kind of a weird thing because
Speaker 2: it's specifically for TikTok Live, because on TikTok Live, people
Speaker 2: can send different emoticons and those emoticons are equating to
Speaker 2: a certain amount of actual dollar coins attached to it
Speaker 2: to pay the creators to act to it.
Speaker 1: So she when she's saying ice cream so good, and
Speaker 1: like maybe ice cream so good? Yes, yes, yes, that
Speaker 1: is a gift that is being sent to her. That
Speaker 1: is also a gift. There is a monetary value that
Speaker 1: she is receiving in connection with that, And the point
Speaker 1: of the people sending this is just to see a
Speaker 1: human being devoid of all humanity, just to having free
Speaker 1: will taken away from them by technology, which I feel
Speaker 1: like at a deep like, at a deep psychological level,
Speaker 1: is kind of how everyone feels a little bit. So
Speaker 1: that's probably where part of the fascinations coming from. And
Speaker 1: then yes, probably people are also masturbating.
Speaker 2: People are definitely masturbating to this. That was the vibe
Speaker 2: I got from specifically the TikToker ming a lla bay
Speaker 2: m I n g A L A B a E.
Speaker 2: They were explaining how when these TikTokers, specifically like Pinky
Speaker 2: Doll will receive these emoticons, you know, and the way
Speaker 2: they react to them is kind of like them orgasming.
Speaker 2: That's like kind of the fetish to it, and.
Speaker 1: The people who are.
Speaker 2: Yes ya, and so the people sending it are you know,
Speaker 2: getting off on seeing the TikToker react, whereas the issue
Speaker 2: being this is a child's app, why would you, you know,
Speaker 2: bring this child's you know, this adult play child in
Speaker 2: a theory, it is a child's app. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 2: but that's you could say that about all the lives
Speaker 2: on TikTok. We've talked about how weird TikTok lives are
Speaker 2: in general, and they all make their money this way,
Speaker 2: like this is just one specific weird way to make money,
Speaker 2: but they all make this money from receiving these emoticons.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people go live, like regular ass
Speaker 2: content creators go live so that they can earn money
Speaker 2: from their audience by them sending them emoticons, because the
Speaker 2: whole goal of the live stream in that sense is
Speaker 2: that you're getting a live reaction from your favorite creator
Speaker 2: that's like, oh my god, thanks Jess for sending me
Speaker 2: that you know ice cream. I'm like so grateful for
Speaker 2: you when it's not being this creepy, weird AI n
Speaker 2: PC thing that is just how life works. This is
Speaker 2: just a different way to be earning money. It is
Speaker 2: a little black marry that you know, Pinky Doll won't
Speaker 2: break character and she's like on Live twenty four seven.
Speaker 2: She's literally on Live right now as we were like
Speaker 2: looking up shit for this article.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is weird, and you are one of her
Speaker 1: biggest donors.
Speaker 2: We should make that and you know, selling my money
Speaker 2: out to be Actually I'm like losing my apartment for this.
Speaker 1: I'm seniging money to Pinky Doll over these gifts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does feel like something that would be too weird
Speaker 1: for Black Mirror. Like I feel like we've gone from
Speaker 1: the thing where people being like gosh man, reality like
Speaker 1: starting to feel like Black Mirror episode open here, and
Speaker 1: now we're just like this is like if you if
Speaker 1: this was in the trailer for Black Mirror, people would
Speaker 1: just be like, well, I don't even know what to
Speaker 1: do with that. Like usually yeah, like there's that one
Speaker 1: episode of Black Mirror where people like rate each other
Speaker 1: on like how good you are, And it's just like
Speaker 1: that almost feels like quaint now, Like then you that
Speaker 1: everybody would have like a reward system that when you
Speaker 1: interact with them you have to like give them five stars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, that was your reaction to the
Speaker 1: introduction of like the like gig app culture, But like
Speaker 1: that's that just seems like we've digested that and moved on.
Speaker 1: This is not me saying like Black Mirror, you're so lamb.
Speaker 1: This is me saying like our culture is so ravenous
Speaker 1: and fucked.
Speaker 2: Up that it already moved they can not move.
Speaker 1: Through new surreal terrain like at a startling pace that
Speaker 1: I feel like it almost makes the job of someone
Speaker 1: making a Black Mirror show like hard, too hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, well anyways, I it's one of those weird
Speaker 1: things that is not a song, is not an earworm,
Speaker 1: but has been stuck in my head as though it
Speaker 1: were a song, And I've been saying it around the
Speaker 1: house and my kids think it's funny, and so I'll
Speaker 1: keep saying it until they stop giving me little gifts
Speaker 1: of their left All right, Oppenheimer, it is Boppenheimer Day
Speaker 1: is upon us, upon us, I got, Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: at midnight tonight tonight they both drop.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I am seeing it tonight before midnight because.
Speaker 1: Read the predial showings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are showing it early. But I kind of
Speaker 2: was thinking about this before we got on MIC. Do
Speaker 2: you remember the days when movies would actually drop at
Speaker 2: night at the theater, like they wouldn't be showing them
Speaker 2: at like seven or four pm or not in the
Speaker 2: day before It was like you had to either go
Speaker 2: to the midnight showing or see it on the day of.
Speaker 2: And I kind of miss that. I mean, I was
Speaker 2: like an older person to not be going to the
Speaker 2: midnight showing, but I miss the fun of like a
Speaker 2: midnight premiere. You guy, all your friends and.
Speaker 1: You go and you sit, and I choose to still
Speaker 1: believe in that reality and say, oh, yeah, these are
Speaker 1: just Thursday previews. Yeah yeah, it's so. The reviews are in.
Speaker 1: They they've lifted the review embargo on Metacritic, and the
Speaker 1: reviews for Oppenheimer and Barbie are in, and they are
Speaker 1: dun dun, dumb, both really good. They're just like Oppenheimer's
Speaker 1: in the nineties, which is crazy high.
Speaker 2: Like this, it's definitely better than I thought it was
Speaker 2: going to be, like the reviews for Oppenheimer, because like,
Speaker 2: I guess maybe it's just not my like, it's not
Speaker 2: my category movie that I would like love to go see. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I love Christopher Nolan. There's definitely movies of his that
Speaker 2: I love. But war movies are definitely have always been
Speaker 2: like a negatory for me. It's kind of like whatever.
Speaker 2: So and I felt like the press for Barbie was
Speaker 2: so overshadowing Oppenheimer that people were like, na, like Oppenheimer's
Speaker 2: gonna be okay, but they're doing better than Party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's your favorite? Like what's we We've done this
Speaker 1: with Wes Anderson, you and I, But what's your like? Nolan?
Speaker 1: Like Inception?
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I wrote a whole like essay on it
Speaker 2: in college.
Speaker 1: You wrote a whole yeah.
Speaker 2: A ten page essay on Inception in college.
Speaker 1: I don't think when I saw it, Inception was my
Speaker 1: favorite Nolan movie. It's definitely the one that I think
Speaker 1: about the most often. And yeah, like it is just
Speaker 1: burnt into the back of my brain of course, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I think is like the mark of a successful movie,
Speaker 1: Like it's just like riddled with plot holes. Which again
Speaker 1: I think Christopher Nolan does plot holes as a flex
Speaker 1: because he's like, I'm so good at movie magic, you
Speaker 1: won't notice this. I am literally waite. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But anyway, it was just such a phenomenon when it
Speaker 2: came out, though, like the concept of the movie I
Speaker 2: felt like was one of those oh, this is an
Speaker 2: original movie again, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so, and I mean, I will say Dunkirk
Speaker 1: was also like in the nineties when it first came
Speaker 1: out and I saw that and I was like, that
Speaker 1: is a successful war film, you know. But did I
Speaker 1: enjoy it the way that I enjoyed like some of
Speaker 1: his other sillier movies. No, yeah, not so much. But
Speaker 1: so like my sense is I'm going to appreciate Oppenheimer,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to be like the film that
Speaker 1: is my favorite Christopher Nolan movie. And then the Barbie
Speaker 1: reviews are in, and they are in the eighties eighty one,
Speaker 1: I believe on Metacritic, which.
Speaker 2: I've got my Juicy Gutour sweatsuit on right now, yes,
Speaker 2: and I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: To go right pink Juicy Guitour ready for the premiere.
Speaker 1: So that so you're going.
Speaker 2: Tonight, I'm going tonight because I couldn't wait. I personally
Speaker 2: was like I have to see it before everybody else.
Speaker 2: So I was like, they're available on Thursday. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go on Thursday.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The reviews, I think, I think some people say
Speaker 1: it is a little darker than anticipated. That was that
Speaker 1: was my prediction. So yeah, yeah, so we'll see. Uh,
Speaker 1: but you know, the the pre purchases of Barbie tickets
Speaker 1: are like the highest I think we talked about earlier
Speaker 1: in the week that I mean.
Speaker 2: My theater sold out. I'm going to be getting there
Speaker 2: early because I chose to go to a theater that
Speaker 2: doesn't have a sign seating because I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: let me see how many of my friends I can
Speaker 2: get to go so we don't have to like sit
Speaker 2: next to like worry about booking seats next to each other.
Speaker 2: And I only got four friends to go and my boyfriend,
Speaker 2: but because he felt very left out, he was shocked
Speaker 2: that I actually bought the tickets without him, but he
Speaker 2: didn't seem interested. But yeah, it sold out, so we
Speaker 2: got to get there early and make sure we get
Speaker 2: good seats.
Speaker 1: The raves for Barbie seemed particularly impressed with the Ken character,
Speaker 1: so I'm excited about that too, Gossling going full gossling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but both of the lead performances are supposedly amazing, Margot
Speaker 1: Robbie continuing to be, you know, just an incredible actor. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, So we're gonna take a quick break and
Speaker 1: then we're gonna come back and talk about a internet
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory about Oppenheimer that is probably not true, but
Speaker 1: has like a nugget in it that kind of blew
Speaker 1: my mind. So we'll be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 1: And so there was this theory back in the day
Speaker 1: when the Frozen came out. The Disney made Frozen purely
Speaker 1: to like as an SEO trap to divert search traffic
Speaker 1: from the internet. Theory that Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen head
Speaker 1: was preserved somewhere in Disneyland.
Speaker 2: That is so crazy. That is a crazy theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that like when you google Disney and Frozen, the
Speaker 1: movie comes up instead of conspiracy theories. Is the theory
Speaker 1: definitely not true, but a fun but fun Reddit post,
Speaker 1: a very fun reddit post. So people are saying the
Speaker 1: same thing about Oppenheimer and Christopher Nolan in a way
Speaker 1: that makes even less sense than that, but it does
Speaker 1: have like a really weird backstory. So there's this viral
Speaker 1: tweet from mister Chow Saracha Chow on Twitter saying, learning
Speaker 1: that Christopher Nolan's fugitive hit man brother's code name is
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer is actually what turned me around on him entirely
Speaker 1: as an artist. Immediately made me want to revisit everything.
Speaker 1: So and then people are like, so, that's that's why
Speaker 1: he made it, And I don't think that's why he
Speaker 1: made it, but it is true that he has an
Speaker 1: older brother who was implicated in a murder in Costa
Speaker 1: Rica that people think will like is like a Hitman
Speaker 1: style murder. So there's Christopher Nolan, there's his brother Joanah
Speaker 1: Nolan or Jonathan Nolan, the Westworld guy who like co
Speaker 1: wrote a couple of his biggest movies, Memento with him.
Speaker 1: They have an older brother named Matthew Nolan. It's just
Speaker 1: you know, he works as a property developer in Chicago.
Speaker 1: But in two thousand and five he was accused or
Speaker 1: he was accused of the two thousand and five murder
Speaker 1: of an accountant in Costa Rica who had stolen a
Speaker 1: bunch of cash from a drug trafficker, and like the
Speaker 1: drug trafficker allegedly like brought Nolan in to recover the
Speaker 1: lost money, all of which Nolan denies, but like he
Speaker 1: allegedly tricked the accountant into like coming into contact him
Speaker 1: by calling himself Matthew McCall Oppenheimer, not because of the
Speaker 1: atomic scientist, but because he wanted people to think he
Speaker 1: was part of the Oppenheimer diamond family. And so he
Speaker 1: was eventually arrested in two thousand and nine after the
Speaker 1: FBI tracked him down because he slipped up and attended
Speaker 1: his own bankruptcy hearing, and the Costa Rican government wanted
Speaker 1: him extradited. He was put in prison in Chicago until
Speaker 1: the judge ultimately ruled that there was no sufficient evidence
Speaker 1: that he was the killer, and he was allowed to
Speaker 1: stay in the US, But the arresting FBI agent claimed
Speaker 1: the extradition request was not up to the legal standards
Speaker 1: required and pointed out that Nolan had some tw somehow
Speaker 1: secure a high priced attorney despite being bankrupt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his two brothers are award winning right, Yes, a
Speaker 2: little lost here.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, it's just like he seems so
Speaker 1: one of the guys who like tracked him down and
Speaker 1: like brought about his arrest. Is like he is the
Speaker 1: most arrogant evil person you've ever met, Like he sounds
Speaker 1: like a movie villain. When he was released from his
Speaker 1: Chicago jail, like guards discovered a thirty one foot long
Speaker 1: rope made up of bed sheets and a harness razor
Speaker 1: and clip designed to unlock handcuffs in his cell and
Speaker 1: they were like, is actually the best damn rope I've
Speaker 1: ever seen made of bed sheets? Like it's just so
Speaker 1: I don't know. And also, so this is around the
Speaker 1: time that Christopher Nolan made Inception, in which, like the
Speaker 1: main character is a like his avoiding extradition for a
Speaker 1: murder he was falsely accused of.
Speaker 2: Damn, this should have been in my essay.
Speaker 1: Right, but it's such a wild like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, so, so the SEO thing doesn't make sense,
Speaker 1: right because this obviously is flirting with like getting everybody
Speaker 1: to google this story and find out this story Like
Speaker 1: this wasn't I said, this wasn't an existing urban legend
Speaker 1: that everybody was talking about on the internet that he
Speaker 1: was trying to cover up, and like this is a
Speaker 1: thing where now I know about this because he chose
Speaker 1: to make the Oppenheimer movie. But it does feel like
Speaker 1: I don't know, he's like taking cues from like at
Speaker 1: least there has to be this like massive fascination with
Speaker 1: his brother, who's.
Speaker 2: Like a quite the life. Yeah, right, wouldn't shock.
Speaker 1: Me, but what a just what a wild story. It
Speaker 1: does make you like kind of take a step back
Speaker 1: and just be like, do I need to like rethink
Speaker 1: because he just seems like kind of a stuffy, like
Speaker 1: British guy who's like, yeah, you know, you better clear
Speaker 1: the schedule when I released my movies because they're the
Speaker 1: best movies, and now it's like weather, there's this darkness,
Speaker 1: this path under the surface. So I don't know, nothing
Speaker 1: was ever proven, but just in terms of like an
Speaker 1: influence on Christopher Nolan's films, Like you know, his breakout
Speaker 1: movie was Memento, written by him and his little brother,
Speaker 1: and it's about a guy who essentially gets exploited and
Speaker 1: tricked into becoming an assassin.
Speaker 2: And it's all coming together.
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's just it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I would believe the Christopher Nolan conspiracy theories over the
Speaker 2: Frozen via Frozen crygentically Disney theory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure,
Speaker 2: because especially with Frozen the movie, those movies take so
Speaker 2: long to animate and they're like in pop I would
Speaker 2: believe other conspiracy theories about the movie Frozen, like the
Speaker 2: lesbian wan and like all those other things over the
Speaker 2: cryogenically Frozen, because I just don't thieve there's a lot
Speaker 2: of stake in that game for them to worry about
Speaker 2: if Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is, but there is there is something too,
Speaker 1: like the way decisions ultimately, the way we find out
Speaker 1: decisions are made over the course of American history, Like
Speaker 1: a lot of times it does end up being like
Speaker 1: some thin skinned rich person being like you gotta find
Speaker 1: a way to get this room or out of there, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like, so, like it's not
Speaker 1: crazy to me that like that was on a you know,
Speaker 1: on a whiteboard somewhere in the Disney office. Is like,
Speaker 1: but I don't believe it. I'm just like it's it's
Speaker 1: not the most far fetched thing. The Nolan thing doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense as a motivation to make this movie. It
Speaker 1: does make sense to me as like if he is
Speaker 1: you know, this brother is just this like shadow figure
Speaker 1: in his life, who is like, you know, really fascinating,
Speaker 1: like darkly fascinating, and he like kind of takes his
Speaker 1: creative interests and cues from that. Like that makes sense
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes so much more sense, I do think.
Speaker 2: I mean, granted, I don't know what Oppenheimer's about. I
Speaker 2: know it's a war movie. Is that awful for me
Speaker 2: to say I don't know what it's about. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I just assume. I look at the aesthetic and was
Speaker 2: like world War two, and then I just like moved on.
Speaker 1: I just didn't it's about the invention of the atomic bomb.
Speaker 1: Oh okay.
Speaker 2: Who. I was like, there's an atomic bomb. It's World
Speaker 2: War two, That's all I know.
Speaker 1: Yes, And then he's like oopsies. And then the government's like,
Speaker 1: well you shouldn't have said oopsies, and now you're.
Speaker 2: Now we have atomic bombs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And finally, just kind of following up on
Speaker 1: some of the stuff we were talking about earlier this week,
Speaker 1: Google News is testing a product that used artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: technology to produce news stories, pitching it to news organizations
Speaker 1: including The New York Times, The Washington Post, on The
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal's owner News Court.
Speaker 2: This is so scary to me, But.
Speaker 1: It's already happening. It's just like a new product.
Speaker 2: Well they go on strike. The writers over there are
Speaker 2: the part of the WGA. They their own writers, hopefully union.
Speaker 1: The Internet is just going to become increasingly unusable as
Speaker 1: a source of any sort of research. Absolutely, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean hopefully the New York Times of the Washington Posts,
Speaker 1: uh in the Wall Street Journal are you know, willing
Speaker 1: to push back on this?
Speaker 2: But when do you think the popular culture bubble of
Speaker 2: the fun office culture of Google will burst for how
Speaker 2: evil they are?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't think anyone thinks of Google as
Speaker 1: like a fun place to definitely like a nice place
Speaker 1: to work because of like the chefs.
Speaker 2: And then I guess because I know a lot of
Speaker 2: people that work at Google, and I feel like, like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, it's whatever. I work at Google, like we're
Speaker 2: good coming from I guess here where we actually talk
Speaker 2: about like news and pop culture. I'm like, oh, y'all
Speaker 2: work for like evil, like doctor Evil, Evil, like obviously,
Speaker 2: But they're like, but it's not Facebook, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Right now, Google's pitching a hei to
Speaker 2: news companies that got writers out of jobs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could see. Like the way this is probably
Speaker 1: being pitched is, look, so many lesser news outlets are
Speaker 1: already doing this, they're doing it worse. This is an
Speaker 1: improvement on that. Yeah, and then you like get somebody
Speaker 1: to come in and fact check it, and you don't
Speaker 1: need the reporting. You're just we're just like skimming the
Speaker 1: internet to like create proprietary story. Proprietary stories. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: unique to The New York Times because we've fed them.
Speaker 1: We've fed the algorithm every one of your stories, so
Speaker 1: they kind of know your voice. And this will just
Speaker 1: be like a cleaned up version of what you know,
Speaker 1: the Times of India is already doing there, you know,
Speaker 1: like some of those like websites that have the it's
Speaker 1: no big secret, what why nobody wants to work with
Speaker 1: Van bought anymore? Yeah, type things. You know. So we'll see,
Speaker 1: but it's not looking good for the ability to do
Speaker 1: research on the internet. Note I would Yeah. All right,
Speaker 1: those are some of the things that are trending on
Speaker 1: this Thursday, July twentieth. All right, well, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining Today. Super producer Becca Ramos. Where can
Speaker 1: people find you? Follow you all that good stuff you.
Speaker 2: Can find me and follow me at bex b e CCS,
Speaker 2: Ramos on all platforms, and at the movies tonight watching Barbie.
Speaker 1: There we go, all right. You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Jack Underscore ol Brian. That is going to
Speaker 1: do it for us this afternoon. We're back tomorrow with
Speaker 1: a whole last episode of the show. Until then, be
Speaker 1: kind to each other, be kind to yourselves, get the vaccine,
Speaker 1: don't do nothing about white supremacy, and we'll talk to
Speaker 1: you all tomorrow. Bye bye m