1
00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:04,960
Speaker 1: Cool Zone media.

2
00:00:05,080 --> 00:00:07,240
Speaker 2: I wish I could tell you that frantically looking up

3
00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:10,479
Speaker 2: incidents of fish falling from the sky cracks the top

4
00:00:10,600 --> 00:00:14,080
Speaker 2: ten of the most demented internet wormholes I've ever gone down.

5
00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:17,520
Speaker 2: But you know that's not true. Still, I am thrilled

6
00:00:17,560 --> 00:00:20,360
Speaker 2: to report to you that there's not one, not two,

7
00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:24,159
Speaker 2: but at least six stories about fish falling from the

8
00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:26,640
Speaker 2: sky that I can talk about off the top of

9
00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:31,040
Speaker 2: my damn head. Australia twenty ten and a small town

10
00:00:31,080 --> 00:00:35,159
Speaker 2: in Australia Northern Territory called Lajamanu, a councilor announced to

11
00:00:35,159 --> 00:00:38,040
Speaker 2: the community that there was a huge storm coming, but

12
00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:41,280
Speaker 2: did not announce that that storm would consist of both

13
00:00:41,400 --> 00:00:43,680
Speaker 2: rain and live fish.

14
00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:44,479
Speaker 3: Oops.

15
00:00:45,159 --> 00:00:47,599
Speaker 2: The fish were pretty small, about the width of two fingers.

16
00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:50,040
Speaker 2: But when fish are falling from the sky and they're

17
00:00:50,159 --> 00:00:52,919
Speaker 2: landing on the ground still alive, there really is no

18
00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:55,160
Speaker 2: sense in being a size queen about it, right, And

19
00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:58,120
Speaker 2: residents in this area claims that this had happened two

20
00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:01,840
Speaker 2: other times in the last fifty years and there's actually

21
00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:05,720
Speaker 2: natural precedent for this, with the reasoning that tornadoes can

22
00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,480
Speaker 2: pull water and fish from hundreds of miles away from

23
00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:12,360
Speaker 2: their point of origin. It's like the recent Glen Powell

24
00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:17,360
Speaker 2: documentary Twisters. Next example, Texas, Arcana, Texas, twenty twenty one,

25
00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,120
Speaker 2: on New Year's Eve, Eve, East Texas residents reported seeing

26
00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:25,360
Speaker 2: fish falling from the sky dead ones this time, I

27
00:01:25,440 --> 00:01:29,200
Speaker 2: fear scattered across pavement, and the city itself announced that

28
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:33,240
Speaker 2: quote unquote animal rain, which is a thing that quote

29
00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:39,160
Speaker 2: unquote animal rain happens when quote small water animals like frogs, crabs,

30
00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:41,640
Speaker 2: and small fish are swept up in water spouts or

31
00:01:41,720 --> 00:01:44,400
Speaker 2: drafts that occur on the surface of the earth. They

32
00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:47,680
Speaker 2: are then rained down at the same time as the rain.

33
00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:51,920
Speaker 2: While it's uncommon, it happens, as evidenced in several places

34
00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:58,240
Speaker 2: in Texarkana today unquote Texas. Bless my text and listeners.

35
00:01:58,280 --> 00:01:59,680
Speaker 2: You already have to deal with the brunt of the

36
00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:03,600
Speaker 2: far hog population, and now this not even the dignity

37
00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:06,800
Speaker 2: of live fish. And I could keep going. The list

38
00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:10,160
Speaker 2: of raining fish locations goes on and on. And there's

39
00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:13,120
Speaker 2: been an uptick of reports in the last fifteen years.

40
00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:15,560
Speaker 2: And this could be for a number of reasons. It

41
00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:18,840
Speaker 2: could be a rise in interest in reporting such things.

42
00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:20,840
Speaker 4: It could be increased.

43
00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:24,200
Speaker 2: Access to personal technology, to share such incidents. It could

44
00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:27,360
Speaker 2: very likely be a creepy side effect of global warming,

45
00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:30,720
Speaker 2: or a combination of all three, but whatever the cause,

46
00:02:30,919 --> 00:02:34,160
Speaker 2: there have been reported cases of either living or dead

47
00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:42,760
Speaker 2: fish raining from the sky reported in Sri Lanka, India, Eviopia, Pennsylvania, Tempico, California,

48
00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:48,040
Speaker 2: the Philippines and Honduras since twenty twelve and today on

49
00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:51,080
Speaker 2: sixteenth minute, what if I was like today we're talking

50
00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:54,360
Speaker 2: about bean Dad. Note today we are talking to and

51
00:02:54,600 --> 00:02:58,560
Speaker 2: with a very recent air of Internet characters of the day.

52
00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:03,040
Speaker 2: One human one fish, either koy or gold depending on

53
00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:06,480
Speaker 2: who you ask, was found on a sunny spring afternoon

54
00:03:06,840 --> 00:03:11,519
Speaker 2: in Manchester, England. A cardiology resident named Ben Beska looked

55
00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:14,760
Speaker 2: outside his bedroom window and saw a wriggling orange shape

56
00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:17,480
Speaker 2: on his lawn. He went downstairs, and, as a man

57
00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:19,680
Speaker 2: in his early thirties, he brought his phone with him

58
00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:22,600
Speaker 2: on autopilot, prepared to update his friend group text in

59
00:03:22,639 --> 00:03:27,160
Speaker 2: the event that anything interesting happened. Listener, something interesting happened.

60
00:03:27,320 --> 00:03:29,880
Speaker 2: What waited for Ben Beska on the lawn was a

61
00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:34,079
Speaker 2: large goldfish in pretty rough shape, you could say due

62
00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:37,360
Speaker 2: to the whole not being underwater thing, but also from

63
00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:40,640
Speaker 2: the impact of what seemed to be a pretty significant fall.

64
00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:44,240
Speaker 2: Ben pokes the fish gently and it moves.

65
00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:45,320
Speaker 4: She's alive.

66
00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:48,720
Speaker 2: She's having the worst day of her life, and he's

67
00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:52,160
Speaker 2: a doctor. He's gonna try and save her. Ben scoops

68
00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:55,520
Speaker 2: the fish into his hand and runs her into his kitchen,

69
00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:58,840
Speaker 2: looking around to find tools to improvise a fish tank with.

70
00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:02,360
Speaker 2: He's never had fish before. He's got cats, and that's

71
00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:05,760
Speaker 2: more or less the opposite. Thinking quickly, he grabs an

72
00:04:05,800 --> 00:04:09,120
Speaker 2: empty freezer drawer and fills it with water, popping the

73
00:04:09,240 --> 00:04:13,600
Speaker 2: injured fish inside. She's not doing great. She's shedding scales,

74
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:17,880
Speaker 2: but to Ben's surprise, she starts to swim again. Confident

75
00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:20,320
Speaker 2: that he can now take a breath, he hits the

76
00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:25,080
Speaker 2: group chat It's Alice. He fumbles into a text, not

77
00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:28,440
Speaker 2: realizing the second word of his sentence has been auto corrected.

78
00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:32,479
Speaker 2: He meant to write it's alive, but Ben's friends confirm

79
00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:36,440
Speaker 2: his gut instinct. For the first time in recorded history,

80
00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:41,560
Speaker 2: autocorrect did something right. The fish's name would be Alice,

81
00:04:41,760 --> 00:04:43,760
Speaker 2: and a guy who to that point had been a

82
00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:47,440
Speaker 2: cardiology meme posting swifty on Twitter, couldn't wait to tell

83
00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:51,279
Speaker 2: his followers all about it, he tweets on June first,

84
00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:54,800
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. But the real show here is the

85
00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:59,640
Speaker 2: picture attached. It's Alice the Giant. I'm just gonna say, goldfish.

86
00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:03,200
Speaker 2: It's better fish Twitter can come for me. In the photo,

87
00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:08,760
Speaker 2: Alice the goldfish is plopped helplessly on a lush green lawn.

88
00:05:08,960 --> 00:05:10,440
Speaker 2: Ben captions the photo.

89
00:05:11,200 --> 00:05:13,440
Speaker 1: So today I found a goldfish just on the grass

90
00:05:13,440 --> 00:05:16,520
Speaker 1: in my back garden. It was alive, I think, and

91
00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:19,960
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no idea where it came from. There's

92
00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:23,520
Speaker 1: no ponds anywhere near, so I took it inside, and.

93
00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:27,159
Speaker 2: In one tweet a legend was born. Ben the Doctor

94
00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:30,920
Speaker 2: and Alice the Goldfish that fell from the sky. Your

95
00:05:31,040 --> 00:06:24,520
Speaker 2: sixteenth minute starts now. Welcome back to sixteenth minute, the

96
00:06:24,520 --> 00:06:26,600
Speaker 2: show where we take a look at the main characters

97
00:06:26,640 --> 00:06:29,640
Speaker 2: of the Internet and see what they show us about ourselves,

98
00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:32,760
Speaker 2: and occasionally, the show where I covertly share more about

99
00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:35,960
Speaker 2: my personal life than is responsible. I've been working on

100
00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:38,200
Speaker 2: this episode for almost two months now, and it's going

101
00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:42,440
Speaker 2: to be our first in real time story of virality,

102
00:06:42,600 --> 00:06:44,479
Speaker 2: A bit of a case study of a flash in

103
00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:47,839
Speaker 2: the pan viral moment and how this attention can affect

104
00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:52,200
Speaker 2: a main character in nearly real time and quick aside,

105
00:06:52,279 --> 00:06:55,679
Speaker 2: for everyone who's sent along requests about the Hawktua girl,

106
00:06:55,880 --> 00:06:58,679
Speaker 2: you're not getting that episode yet. It's way too soon.

107
00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:03,760
Speaker 2: But the sensation is kind of an outlier on today's Internet.

108
00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:07,240
Speaker 2: For most people that get sucked into the algorithm these days,

109
00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:09,840
Speaker 2: this kind of longevity is pretty fleeting.

110
00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:11,960
Speaker 4: The get so famous.

111
00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:14,280
Speaker 2: You spark a week's long culture war route of fame

112
00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:18,440
Speaker 2: was not Ben Beska's destiny, in part because the story

113
00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:22,600
Speaker 2: is really different, but also because Ben is a working professional.

114
00:07:22,680 --> 00:07:25,600
Speaker 2: He's in his thirties, and this chance encounter with Alice

115
00:07:25,640 --> 00:07:30,280
Speaker 2: and a subsequent online fame has to fit into his life.

116
00:07:29,640 --> 00:07:30,760
Speaker 4: Not the other way around.

117
00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:34,160
Speaker 2: And in these far more common cases, if something is

118
00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:37,200
Speaker 2: even a little off, like maybe the person is too

119
00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:39,600
Speaker 2: busy with their normal life to really commit to the

120
00:07:39,640 --> 00:07:43,040
Speaker 2: new lifestyle that the algorithm is foisting upon them. Maybe

121
00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:46,600
Speaker 2: their interest in other things dilutes and confuses a potential

122
00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:49,440
Speaker 2: audience and they move on. Maybe the person who goes

123
00:07:49,520 --> 00:07:52,880
Speaker 2: viral is burdened by the question do I even want

124
00:07:52,920 --> 00:07:56,400
Speaker 2: to be this guy? And that's why Ben and Alice

125
00:07:56,400 --> 00:07:59,560
Speaker 2: the Goldfish is such an interesting story to me. This

126
00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:03,040
Speaker 2: story the makings of a fable. So today we're going

127
00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:06,320
Speaker 2: to talk to Ben about the profound weirdness that takes

128
00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:09,400
Speaker 2: hold in someone's life when the Internet decides that you

129
00:08:09,480 --> 00:08:12,520
Speaker 2: are this guy now actually, And then we're going to

130
00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:15,920
Speaker 2: talk to a psychologist who's been studying how virality affects

131
00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:18,560
Speaker 2: the brain and psyche for decades to give us a

132
00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:21,880
Speaker 2: better idea of what Ben was really going through. So

133
00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:25,240
Speaker 2: come with me, if you will to June twenty twenty four.

134
00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:29,120
Speaker 2: Maybe you remember it, an American presidential debate asks the

135
00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:32,880
Speaker 2: question who is more dead? Furiosa is bombing at the

136
00:08:32,920 --> 00:08:35,640
Speaker 2: box office and everyone's afraid to say that it was

137
00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:38,840
Speaker 2: because it was a little mid And in Newcastle, England,

138
00:08:39,040 --> 00:08:41,480
Speaker 2: a young doctor looked out his window to see that

139
00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:45,480
Speaker 2: a fish named Alice had fallen from the sky. So

140
00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:48,040
Speaker 2: where do we leave off with this story? Ben finds

141
00:08:48,080 --> 00:08:51,120
Speaker 2: Alice and discovers her name via a typo in a

142
00:08:51,120 --> 00:08:53,760
Speaker 2: friend group chat, but doesn't post about it to his

143
00:08:53,840 --> 00:08:57,199
Speaker 2: Twitter account right away. He's a doctor, bibe, He's got

144
00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:00,120
Speaker 2: a life to save. So once Alice is safely in

145
00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:02,680
Speaker 2: a freezer drawer and Ben's cats are locked in a

146
00:09:02,720 --> 00:09:05,600
Speaker 2: separate room. He books it to the nearest pet store

147
00:09:05,679 --> 00:09:08,600
Speaker 2: and grabs a small tank to tide Alice over until

148
00:09:08,640 --> 00:09:11,120
Speaker 2: he figures out what to do next. And while she

149
00:09:11,280 --> 00:09:13,840
Speaker 2: was in rough shape when he found her, Alice seems

150
00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:16,920
Speaker 2: to be rallying a little bit. Within two hours, Ben

151
00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:19,680
Speaker 2: has all but brought our orange fin girl back from

152
00:09:19,679 --> 00:09:22,840
Speaker 2: the dead. And at at this point that he starts tweeting.

153
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:25,360
Speaker 2: So let's hear the tweet that started it all one

154
00:09:25,400 --> 00:09:28,520
Speaker 2: more time, captioned with a picture of a helpless Alice

155
00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:29,280
Speaker 2: in the grass.

156
00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:31,959
Speaker 1: So today I found a goldfish just on the grass

157
00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:35,079
Speaker 1: in my back garden. It was alive, I think, and

158
00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:38,480
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no idea where it came from. There's

159
00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:41,360
Speaker 1: no pawns anywhere near, so I took it inside.

160
00:09:42,080 --> 00:09:44,840
Speaker 2: Now, this is the tweet of a man who knows

161
00:09:44,880 --> 00:09:49,240
Speaker 2: how a viral thread begins, and unlike many attempted viral threads,

162
00:09:49,360 --> 00:09:53,679
Speaker 2: Ben's story has the narrative juice to trickle into today's

163
00:09:53,679 --> 00:09:56,880
Speaker 2: Twitter algorithm. And while I could not explain to you

164
00:09:56,960 --> 00:10:00,840
Speaker 2: what the endgame of Twitter's current iteration is, I do

165
00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:05,520
Speaker 2: know that its algorithmically driven platform was absolutely the reason

166
00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:08,920
Speaker 2: Alice the goldfish came into my life. I first saw

167
00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:12,800
Speaker 2: Ben's tweets the day after this saga began. So Ben's

168
00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:17,640
Speaker 2: thread continues, accompanied by carefully documented pictures and videos. He

169
00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:18,920
Speaker 2: tweets it was.

170
00:10:18,920 --> 00:10:23,080
Speaker 1: Alive, although not very happy in an old freezer draw

171
00:10:23,679 --> 00:10:27,480
Speaker 1: much happier in an actual and hastily bought tank. Anyway,

172
00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:30,440
Speaker 1: I have a fish now thumbs up emoji for me.

173
00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:34,559
Speaker 2: This last tweet is the money shot. Two posts after

174
00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:37,320
Speaker 2: being found fallen from the sky on his lawn, there's

175
00:10:37,360 --> 00:10:40,760
Speaker 2: a video of Alice the goldfish swimming along happily in

176
00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:42,040
Speaker 2: a small aquarium.

177
00:10:42,280 --> 00:10:43,359
Speaker 4: It's a cartoon.

178
00:10:43,679 --> 00:10:45,920
Speaker 2: And before you ask, how did a fish fall from

179
00:10:45,920 --> 00:10:48,840
Speaker 2: the sky, look, I can't guarantee an answer. I'm all

180
00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:52,000
Speaker 2: out of answers. How Alice got there is between Alice

181
00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:55,440
Speaker 2: and God. But of course this is the first question

182
00:10:55,520 --> 00:10:58,559
Speaker 2: that a lot of Twitter users have, and we immediately

183
00:10:58,600 --> 00:11:02,160
Speaker 2: have this class exploit in opinion. We have the likely

184
00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:06,040
Speaker 2: explanation of how Alice fell from the sky, which Ben Beska,

185
00:11:06,240 --> 00:11:09,080
Speaker 2: most media outlets and a couple of naturalists on Twitter

186
00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:13,280
Speaker 2: have subscribed to. And there are the unhinged conspiracy theories.

187
00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:17,119
Speaker 2: Here is the likely reason quoted here from BBC News.

188
00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:22,920
Speaker 1: Doctor Besker suspected a bird had picked up the fish

189
00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:26,920
Speaker 1: from a nearby pond and dropped it while carrying it away. However,

190
00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:29,840
Speaker 1: he said there are no ponds close by, and he

191
00:11:29,880 --> 00:11:33,800
Speaker 1: thought it must therefore have traveled a quote reasonable distance

192
00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:34,600
Speaker 1: end quote.

193
00:11:34,920 --> 00:11:37,080
Speaker 2: Basca continued in the same piece.

194
00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:39,040
Speaker 1: It's been quite funny. Some of the comments are really

195
00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:42,360
Speaker 1: quite funny, and about a thousand people said they thought

196
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:43,400
Speaker 1: a bird dropped it.

197
00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:46,520
Speaker 2: Look, I'm not too proud to admit that I first

198
00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:49,960
Speaker 2: read this story and was like what And then I

199
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:52,160
Speaker 2: read that Ben Besco lived near a body of water

200
00:11:52,440 --> 00:11:56,560
Speaker 2: and a bird almost certainly caught and then dropped alice,

201
00:11:56,800 --> 00:12:00,960
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense for me.

202
00:12:01,160 --> 00:12:04,720
Speaker 2: This explanation made the whole story less mysterious and more

203
00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:07,719
Speaker 2: of a Pixar movie I would watch. But remember, this

204
00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:10,600
Speaker 2: is Twitter. We're talking about a place where for every

205
00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:14,640
Speaker 2: post there's an equal and opposite conspiracy post, and honestly

206
00:12:14,840 --> 00:12:17,920
Speaker 2: a place where it's not completely unreasonable to doubt that

207
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:22,240
Speaker 2: a narrator is just doing something for attention. Patterns of

208
00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:25,720
Speaker 2: lying for clout are super common on social media and

209
00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:28,000
Speaker 2: have produced some of my favorite memes of all time.

210
00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:32,920
Speaker 2: I'm talking Ruth Konda forever, I'm talking cinnamon toos shrimp.

211
00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:36,120
Speaker 2: The list goes on. And with that in mind, here

212
00:12:36,200 --> 00:12:40,200
Speaker 2: are the conspiracy theories about Ben and Alice. People who,

213
00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:43,360
Speaker 2: for what I can tell, assume that Ben bought a goldfish,

214
00:12:43,679 --> 00:12:46,200
Speaker 2: threw it on his lawn, and took a picture of

215
00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:49,400
Speaker 2: it in hopes that the Twitter algorithm would swallow it whole.

216
00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:53,199
Speaker 3: The tweet says, so this is fake and I'm contributing.

217
00:12:53,720 --> 00:12:56,200
Speaker 2: Sorry, but this is just really misguided to me. Ben

218
00:12:56,280 --> 00:13:00,120
Speaker 2: Beska until this point has been a terminally online but

219
00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:03,320
Speaker 2: pretty keeping in his own lane kind of poster. He

220
00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:07,240
Speaker 2: would tweet frequently, but it was mainly memes and observations

221
00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:10,800
Speaker 2: about the medical world, about Taylor Swift, and about boy

222
00:13:10,880 --> 00:13:13,840
Speaker 2: genius communities he was already a part of, and from

223
00:13:13,840 --> 00:13:16,240
Speaker 2: what I can tell, most of his interactions prior to

224
00:13:16,280 --> 00:13:20,880
Speaker 2: Alice's arrival from either a bird Heaven or Besca's own

225
00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:24,240
Speaker 2: evil plan, or people he'd already spoken with before. So

226
00:13:24,360 --> 00:13:26,839
Speaker 2: do I think this guy's a con artist? No, I don't.

227
00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:29,200
Speaker 2: I think he's a very online guy in his thirties.

228
00:13:29,400 --> 00:13:33,480
Speaker 2: But surprisingly, while there is this paranoia that Ben faked

229
00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:36,839
Speaker 2: the Alice story at first. Those theories die out pretty

230
00:13:36,880 --> 00:13:40,440
Speaker 2: quickly as the story gained mainstream media and the likely

231
00:13:40,559 --> 00:13:43,640
Speaker 2: cause of the bird dropping Alice seemed to make sense

232
00:13:43,679 --> 00:13:47,400
Speaker 2: to more people than not. No, the true controversy of

233
00:13:47,480 --> 00:13:51,079
Speaker 2: this story has to do with, wait for it, the

234
00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:55,600
Speaker 2: aquarium community. For fuck's sake, here's what they had to say.

235
00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:58,080
Speaker 3: You can remove the big bushy plant for more space.

236
00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:00,280
Speaker 3: That guy will need at least a twenty gallon tank.

237
00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:02,720
Speaker 3: That's the pond variety, so it's not going to be

238
00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:03,760
Speaker 3: happy in a small space.

239
00:14:04,559 --> 00:14:08,040
Speaker 1: A tank needs time to cycle properly in order to

240
00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:12,079
Speaker 1: process fish waste. You can buy bacteria to help speed

241
00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:14,440
Speaker 1: up the process, but in the meantime, make sure you

242
00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:18,679
Speaker 1: do very frequent water changes with properly treated water in

243
00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:19,760
Speaker 1: order to keep it alive.

244
00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:23,480
Speaker 2: You, guys, I'm gonna hold my tongue here. I cannot

245
00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:26,440
Speaker 2: get canceled by the aquarium community today.

246
00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:26,760
Speaker 5: No.

247
00:14:26,960 --> 00:14:30,000
Speaker 2: Part of what's interesting to me about this story is

248
00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:34,400
Speaker 2: the raw speed that it moves with, in part because

249
00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:37,680
Speaker 2: ben Beska is interacting with people about Alice on Twitter

250
00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:41,920
Speaker 2: in basically real time and pushing the algorithm within hours,

251
00:14:42,040 --> 00:14:46,120
Speaker 2: and ben Beska finds himself bending off criticisms from aquarium

252
00:14:46,160 --> 00:14:51,280
Speaker 2: aficionados on the same day that he finds Alice. June first,

253
00:14:51,680 --> 00:14:56,520
Speaker 2: he hastily continues this original, increasingly viral thread. At present,

254
00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:59,680
Speaker 2: it has over two hundred thousand likes. He continues this

255
00:14:59,720 --> 00:15:02,920
Speaker 2: every general dread with defenses of this small fish tank

256
00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:04,880
Speaker 2: you bought in haste, saying.

257
00:15:05,560 --> 00:15:09,720
Speaker 1: Repeat after me, a hastily bought temporary tank is better

258
00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:11,960
Speaker 1: for a goldfish than laying dead in the grass.

259
00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:15,400
Speaker 2: Folks. You hate to see it, But the aquarium community

260
00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:18,280
Speaker 2: clearly got to Ben, and he tweets later in the

261
00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:21,640
Speaker 2: day as he continues to observe Alice the goldfish, and

262
00:15:21,680 --> 00:15:25,760
Speaker 2: I can hear the aquarium community grumbling she's a coyfish,

263
00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:29,800
Speaker 2: but she's a goldfish to me, Ben continues.

264
00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:32,400
Speaker 1: You happen to find a mostly dead goldfish on your

265
00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:35,360
Speaker 1: lawn and tweet about saving its life, and your applies

266
00:15:35,400 --> 00:15:38,440
Speaker 1: are filled with people saying you should have planned this better.

267
00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:41,960
Speaker 2: So Ben does get some hate, but that is vastly

268
00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:46,600
Speaker 2: outdone by the effusive love and praise at this pretty

269
00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:51,560
Speaker 2: charming story. Most users are incredibly charmed and stoked about this,

270
00:15:51,960 --> 00:15:54,560
Speaker 2: and it seems like Alice the goldfish is poised to

271
00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:59,160
Speaker 2: become a modern classic Internet animal. She's got the potential

272
00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:01,920
Speaker 2: of a grumpy cat, of a Marnie the dog, of

273
00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:04,920
Speaker 2: a yon cat. The list goes on because there is

274
00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:07,280
Speaker 2: a sort of playbook to make these kinds of things

275
00:16:07,320 --> 00:16:10,640
Speaker 2: happened once the public is excited about an animal that's

276
00:16:10,680 --> 00:16:14,600
Speaker 2: either extremely adorable or has a really compelling story, and

277
00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:17,680
Speaker 2: almost right away that seems where this story is headed.

278
00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:21,120
Speaker 2: The story goes viral around the UK in the first

279
00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:25,000
Speaker 2: three days of June. Mystery as Live Doctor finds goldfish

280
00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:29,000
Speaker 2: in garden Junior Doctor goes viral after rescuing live fish

281
00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:32,080
Speaker 2: from garden, lawn and Newcastle. I found a goldfish seconds

282
00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:34,480
Speaker 2: from death in my garden. Now I'm keeping it as

283
00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:37,840
Speaker 2: my pet. And here's the singular point where Ben and

284
00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:42,800
Speaker 2: Alice Besca and the Hawktua Girl converge. They're both very

285
00:16:42,840 --> 00:16:45,960
Speaker 2: amenable to speak with the press, and they appear to

286
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:49,200
Speaker 2: respond to reporters very quickly. Ben gives interviews to a

287
00:16:49,320 --> 00:16:52,760
Speaker 2: number of different places, and while most are just rehashing

288
00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:56,080
Speaker 2: the story of discovering Alice, anyone hoping to find out

289
00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:59,320
Speaker 2: how Alice was doing now could follow Ben on Twitter,

290
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:03,920
Speaker 2: updates were coming fast and furious. In the next couple days,

291
00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:06,919
Speaker 2: he provided updates on not just Alice, but on.

292
00:17:06,840 --> 00:17:08,440
Speaker 4: His aquarium journey.

293
00:17:08,680 --> 00:17:11,320
Speaker 2: Early on, he tweets back and forth with an aquarium

294
00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:14,560
Speaker 2: company that offers him free advice and even better, a

295
00:17:14,600 --> 00:17:19,520
Speaker 2: free aquarium. Next critical to the viral internet pet phenomenon,

296
00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:23,680
Speaker 2: a separate account pops up for Alice the Goldfish. Her

297
00:17:23,720 --> 00:17:27,600
Speaker 2: handle is at Alice Besca. She quote tweets a picture

298
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:31,000
Speaker 2: Ben posted of Alice the Goldfish in that small tank

299
00:17:31,240 --> 00:17:34,000
Speaker 2: with this little zinger emergency.

300
00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:34,960
Speaker 3: Has it not so bad?

301
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:35,399
Speaker 6: I guess?

302
00:17:35,400 --> 00:17:37,520
Speaker 3: But fuck me, this studio fat is kind of small.

303
00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:39,520
Speaker 2: Then she replies to Ben.

304
00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:40,840
Speaker 3: Got anything bigger love?

305
00:17:41,640 --> 00:17:45,840
Speaker 2: Immediately Ben starts interacting with the alis Basca account. So

306
00:17:45,960 --> 00:17:49,400
Speaker 2: at the time I made assumptions, and even I ended

307
00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:52,200
Speaker 2: up messing this up. I assumed that this was Ben

308
00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:55,760
Speaker 2: talking to an account pretending to be Alice that he

309
00:17:56,040 --> 00:17:59,479
Speaker 2: had created himself. When it turns out that just a

310
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:04,200
Speaker 2: daily this account had been created by a fan of Alice,

311
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:08,560
Speaker 2: so free of charge, this fan was already performing the

312
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:12,840
Speaker 2: next step in creating an iconic Internet animal, creating a

313
00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:17,520
Speaker 2: specific editorial voice which sounds super corny, but think of

314
00:18:17,560 --> 00:18:20,800
Speaker 2: an Internet animal you like. In most cases, there is

315
00:18:20,840 --> 00:18:23,840
Speaker 2: a specific kind of caption that you'll read for a

316
00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:29,080
Speaker 2: familiar animal, and Alice Besca's voice was lovingly antagonistic toward

317
00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:32,679
Speaker 2: Ben's incompetence as a new fish owner, making in jokes

318
00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:36,320
Speaker 2: that people who had been following the whole saga could appreciate. Then,

319
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:39,919
Speaker 2: another step on the journey to engage fans in making

320
00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:43,840
Speaker 2: Alice a legitimate Internet pet, Ben launches a gofund me

321
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:46,919
Speaker 2: to help fund the aquarium equipment he needs.

322
00:18:47,240 --> 00:18:47,840
Speaker 4: Here's what he.

323
00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:51,040
Speaker 1: Posts now, apparently I need a bigg a tank and

324
00:18:51,119 --> 00:18:54,720
Speaker 1: chemicals another random things that apparently a fish needs. At

325
00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:57,520
Speaker 1: least that's what everyone on Twitter is saying. I would

326
00:18:57,560 --> 00:19:00,400
Speaker 1: appreciate your help in helping me find a nice at home.

327
00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:03,280
Speaker 1: My amazing story has also been covered in the news

328
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:06,600
Speaker 1: read more in The Evening Standard, The Guardian, or The Mirror.

329
00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:09,960
Speaker 2: Things chug along like this for a couple days, with

330
00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:13,440
Speaker 2: Ben Beska's account providing updates on Alice as fan art

331
00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:17,960
Speaker 2: and puff pieces continue to roll in paintings, memes. A

332
00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:23,000
Speaker 2: high coup for Alice the Goldfish who Lived. Twitter was

333
00:19:23,119 --> 00:19:28,679
Speaker 2: incredulous when Alice met Ben. The Alice Besca account is

334
00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:32,640
Speaker 2: posting regularly, and by June fifth, just four days after

335
00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:35,240
Speaker 2: this all began, Ben tweets.

336
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:37,640
Speaker 1: Hey, Alis Besca, do you want a boyfriend or a

337
00:19:37,680 --> 00:19:38,600
Speaker 1: sister slash brother?

338
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:44,000
Speaker 2: Enter Barney, a blackfish who arrives. On June sixth, the

339
00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:46,960
Speaker 2: Alice account quote tweets a picture of Barney and captions

340
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:51,520
Speaker 2: it goth BF. By this time, there's also merch. On

341
00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:55,399
Speaker 2: June fifth, the Alice account, not Ben himself, launches a

342
00:19:55,440 --> 00:20:00,600
Speaker 2: tentative merch store consisting of multiple Alice designs. At this point,

343
00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:04,720
Speaker 2: it feels clear that Ben Besca wants to make this

344
00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:07,720
Speaker 2: a thing. I first got in touch with Ben on

345
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:10,239
Speaker 2: June fourth. I was on top of it, and we

346
00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:13,520
Speaker 2: planned to speak on June sixth, but then he went quiet,

347
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:16,399
Speaker 2: and not just in our chat, but on social media

348
00:20:16,600 --> 00:20:19,640
Speaker 2: all together. And I assume that was because he's still

349
00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:22,000
Speaker 2: a junior doctor and said that he was going to

350
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,360
Speaker 2: be attending a conference pretty soon, and that was true,

351
00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:29,359
Speaker 2: but that's not why he went quiet. What happened was

352
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:34,199
Speaker 2: Alice died. And Okay, maybe this is corny, but I

353
00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 2: saw this song referenced by many Alice fans when the

354
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:40,040
Speaker 2: news originally broke. So we are going to get the

355
00:20:40,119 --> 00:20:44,360
Speaker 2: karaoke track from Candle in the Wind Bumping in Alice's memory.

356
00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:48,080
Speaker 4: Full drama.

357
00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:51,000
Speaker 1: Hmm, beautiful.

358
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:56,640
Speaker 2: It's the classic for a reason. Ben broke his silence

359
00:20:56,760 --> 00:20:58,719
Speaker 2: on Twitter on June eighth.

360
00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:02,480
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I have some very sad news to share. Alice

361
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:04,879
Speaker 1: has passed from her injuries and is now interentally swimming

362
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:09,479
Speaker 1: in the big fish tank in the sky rip. Alice

363
00:21:09,560 --> 00:21:11,520
Speaker 1: is now the fish that lived for a.

364
00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:16,240
Speaker 2: Bit, and the cynical among us thought, well, this really

365
00:21:16,320 --> 00:21:19,359
Speaker 2: fucks up the Pixar story. And I've thought about this

366
00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:22,399
Speaker 2: a ridiculous amount because it is really sad. But I

367
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:25,359
Speaker 2: also think it's kind of beautiful, right because if Ben

368
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,840
Speaker 2: hadn't found her, Alice would have died a week earlier,

369
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:32,480
Speaker 2: and through the combination of a strange twist of feet

370
00:21:32,760 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 2: in a loose jawed predatory bird, Ben Besca was able

371
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:41,679
Speaker 2: to give Alice the goldfish another week of life that

372
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:45,600
Speaker 2: was spent in comfort, with adoration and good food and

373
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 2: a new friend, Barney, and unbeknownst to Alice, worldwide notoriety.

374
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:54,280
Speaker 2: I think it's really sweet and I'm weak. It didn't

375
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:58,080
Speaker 2: make me cry, but this is a show about social media,

376
00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 2: not our capacity to thighs with dead fish. So my

377
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:07,720
Speaker 2: curiosity was how did Ben, the Alisbasca account, and the

378
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:13,520
Speaker 2: press handle this tragic development. After the death announcement from Ben,

379
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:16,200
Speaker 2: Alice's story gets another small.

380
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:17,439
Speaker 4: Bump in mainstream media.

381
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,080
Speaker 2: Man who adopted fish he found in his garden shares

382
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 2: sad update, and then Ben is left to figure out basically,

383
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:27,000
Speaker 2: does he try to keep this thing going in the

384
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:29,359
Speaker 2: wake of a pet he's slowly fallen in love with

385
00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:32,840
Speaker 2: dying or does he just go back to who he

386
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 2: was a week ago. First, he amplifies the public mourning

387
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 2: of Alice, the memorial drawings of her being welcomed into

388
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:43,399
Speaker 2: the Great Cooy Pond in the sky, a drawing of

389
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:47,440
Speaker 2: Steve Irwin's angel telling Alice you did great girl, her

390
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 2: photo edited onto the cover of Elton John's Candle in

391
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:54,280
Speaker 2: the Wind. The Alis Besca account posts.

392
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 3: Do not fear death so much, but rather the you're

393
00:22:57,119 --> 00:22:58,480
Speaker 3: not a good life.

394
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:01,880
Speaker 2: It all feels fitting, and then the Alice Basca account

395
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:06,760
Speaker 2: keeps tweeting. June twelfth, Alice quote tweets Ben posting fan

396
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 2: art of her saying.

397
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:13,920
Speaker 3: Im g look at me slaying posthumously. June fourteenth, three

398
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 3: days until the T shirt. Shit, I'm so excited for

399
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 3: everyone to get their shirts.

400
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 2: June twenty first, when Ben posts a picture of the

401
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,880
Speaker 2: new massive gifted fish tank that Alice didn't live long

402
00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 2: enough to enjoy.

403
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:28,800
Speaker 3: Wow, He's moved on quick.

404
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 2: Because by this time Ben Beska has chosen the direction

405
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 2: he's going in. He's doubling down on fish. At the

406
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,000
Speaker 2: time of Alice's death, the free fish tank was already

407
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:40,919
Speaker 2: in the mail, and he'd already gotten her a goth

408
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:43,720
Speaker 2: BF in the form of Barney. So after taking some

409
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 2: time to mourn Alice at a UK Taylor Swift aerostour

410
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 2: that he'd had tickets to for months, he seems to

411
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 2: decide to keep going. By mid June, Ben had to

412
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:57,440
Speaker 2: wonder Carrie Bradshaw voice, what does he do after Alice?

413
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:02,160
Speaker 2: On June eighteenth, less than two weeks after Alice's premature death,

414
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 2: I asked him just that our interview when we come back,

415
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 2: welcome back to sixteenth minute. I'm getting dangerously close to

416
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:28,679
Speaker 2: becoming a train guy, and today we're talking about junior

417
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 2: doctor Ben Beska and Alice the goldfish who fell from

418
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 2: the sky. And as much as I would like to

419
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 2: interview Alice myself, I am at present unable to communicate

420
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 2: with fish, and also she's dead. Given these barriers to entry,

421
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 2: I instead decided to reach out to the fish poster himself,

422
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 2: Ben Vesca.

423
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 7: So.

424
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 2: I actually interviewed Ben Wewiss this episode once on June eighteenth,

425
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:55,119
Speaker 2: while this story was still developing, and then over a

426
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,879
Speaker 2: month later in late July. You don't need me to

427
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:00,880
Speaker 2: tell you that a month can be u Alexies apart

428
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 2: when it comes to viral stories. Before we first talked

429
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 2: over Zoom just a few days after Alice the Fish

430
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 2: passed away. Besco was both very receptive to talk to

431
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 2: me and the press in general, but was kind of

432
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 2: hard to pin down because it's not like becoming the

433
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 2: goldfish guy meant that he quit his extremely demanding job

434
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 2: working as a cardiology resident at an English hospital. But

435
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 2: I kept bugging him because I'm really good at that,

436
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 2: and when we found time to catch up, he was

437
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 2: in good humor and understandably a little overwhelmed from the

438
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 2: events of the week. Here is our chat from June.

439
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 4: Who are you then, Deska.

440
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 7: So I'm from England, from Newcast so I've been a doctor.

441
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 7: I don't know a long time now. I can't remember

442
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 7: being a doctor for a while. I studied in Newcastle,

443
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 7: went to Medicol to Newcastle, stayed in Newcastle. My number

444
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 7: one hobby is now keeping fish, but prior to last

445
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 7: week that was not my main hobby. I mainly used Twitter. Actually,

446
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 7: I mean, as you say, you look through it and

447
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:00,239
Speaker 7: there was a very minimal fish content on it.

448
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a huge pivot moment.

449
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 7: There's a pivot. There's a big pervot mainly used it

450
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:13,479
Speaker 7: for medicine stuff, basically stuff sprinkled with bits of you know,

451
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 7: Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridges and artists like that, which

452
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,640
Speaker 7: I like. But it was a big, big pivot recently

453
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 7: to fish. And I think now there's like twenty thousand

454
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 7: extra people following me, all who care about fish. So

455
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 7: I've had to change my you know, what I talk

456
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 7: about significantly anything that isn't fish related. Effectively, I get

457
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:43,200
Speaker 7: lots of abuse for not being fish related. Really already,

458
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 7: I mean, Tom, I assume it's tongue in cheek abuse. Yeah,

459
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 7: who knows. But I sent a tweet about some boring

460
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 7: medicine stuff. People reply saying, oh, yes, but what's this

461
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 7: got to do with the fish?

462
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 2: Okay, I want to talk about that in a bit

463
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 2: of like how when you become notorious for one thing

464
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 2: that all of a sudden that is like the yardstick,

465
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 2: that it's.

466
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:05,439
Speaker 7: Like your entire personality.

467
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 4: Now, well, before we.

468
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 2: Get there, you want to be taken through this biblical

469
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:11,640
Speaker 2: event of finding Alice.

470
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 4: It was June first.

471
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 7: So I was when was I think. I was upstairs

472
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 7: initially in my house, and I heard mag eyes, you know, squawking,

473
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 7: was like, what the hell is going on? And I

474
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 7: saw this gold thing on the lawn. So I went downstairs,

475
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,679
Speaker 7: went outside, and there was a fish on the floor

476
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 7: in the grass. I didn't really understand what was happening,

477
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,400
Speaker 7: no kidding, And she wasn't moving. She was just kind

478
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 7: of like still on the floor. And I was like, oh, right,

479
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 7: the dead fish. Fine, don't ask him any questions. So

480
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 7: I took a picture of the fish being because no,

481
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:49,640
Speaker 7: I knew no one would believe me, you know, when

482
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:51,159
Speaker 7: I said there was a fish on the on the floor,

483
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 7: and I sent the photo to my friend and I said,

484
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 7: there's a fish in the garden, and I was like,

485
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 7: what are you talking about? But then the fish moved,

486
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 7: it gills moved, but she was thin. They breathe, which

487
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:03,159
Speaker 7: she was suffocating, really, wasn't she?

488
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 2: So yeah?

489
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 7: And I was like, oh God, but what do I

490
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 7: do in this situation? So when I ran inside and

491
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,400
Speaker 7: I just put the sink on, filled up the think

492
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 7: and picked up by a tail, run inside and it

493
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 7: started doing a classic fish thing, the fish fly. I

494
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 7: was like bloody and it was gross because it was

495
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:22,879
Speaker 7: like slimy and it was a fish. It was alive,

496
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 7: you know.

497
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 4: Yeah.

498
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,919
Speaker 7: So threw threw her in the seak and I mean

499
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 7: she was kind of still and not really moving. I mean,

500
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 7: it was a fish. I fell on the lawn. I

501
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 7: need some kind of container to put her in. I

502
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 7: found a freezer draw which was a number, you know,

503
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 7: I don't know. It was the only container I could

504
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 7: think to put something so large and filled up with water.

505
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 7: Put the fish in and it wasn't really moving still.

506
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 7: I kind of like tapped the box and then it

507
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 7: started swimming around and amongst the water was you know,

508
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 7: loads of scales that I think had probably fallen off

509
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 7: a whatever trauma leader to you know, my back garden.

510
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 7: You know, that's a story of how I found the

511
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 7: fish and the first two minutes of her second life.

512
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 2: You've got Alice in the free search drawer. She's slowly

513
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 2: coming to what is the distance To.

514
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 7: Clarify, because numerous people actually thought this, she wasn't actually

515
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 7: in the freezer, the freezer draw side of the freezer.

516
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 4: I think that was clear in your video.

517
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 8: It was.

518
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 7: I think it was very clear. But people on Twitter,

519
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 7: you know, you know how the internet is.

520
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 2: What is the amount of time between finding Alice, getting

521
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 2: her into a receptacle and sharing it online?

522
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 7: Probably half an hour. So I put the fish in

523
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 7: the drawer. I left the house to go to the

524
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 7: neary shop to buy a fish tank or something better

525
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 7: than the drawer, you know, because I know the fish

526
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 7: need you know, chemicals or something. I know a lot

527
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 7: more now about that, but I knew that basically that

528
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 7: fish needed some kind of chemicals. I literally went to

529
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 7: the closer shop, bought a tank, bought some chemicals, came home,

530
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 7: put it in that tank. I think at that point

531
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 7: I tweeted about it. I mean, within the first half

532
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 7: an hour or so. It's you know, my normal friends

533
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 7: that you tweet, you know that the normal medical twitter people.

534
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 7: Then it's sort of snowballs and snowballs and snowballs, and

535
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 7: it goes mad maybe within half an hour an hour,

536
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 7: so you can't track how large it gets because you

537
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 7: know every second there's twenty notifications and you can't keep

538
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 7: track of anything.

539
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 4: Had you ever been through anything like it?

540
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 7: No, I thought I'd achieved something like this with a

541
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 7: Nobel prize or some kind of genuine achievement. But no, no,

542
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 7: it's a fish.

543
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 4: So the story blows up.

544
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 2: Something I noticed early on there was a lot of

545
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 2: or not a lot of, but at least some doubt

546
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 2: cast onto the story.

547
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 4: What was the nature of that, and like, how did

548
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 4: you handle it?

549
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 7: Yeah? So I think the first doubt there was people

550
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 7: suggesting that I went out bought a fish, a large goldfish,

551
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 7: and I don't know if you can buy them when

552
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 7: they're big, put it on the lawn, like, battered around

553
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 7: a bit, ripped a few of its, you know, took

554
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 7: somewhere the scales off, and then posted on the internet,

555
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 7: which makes no sense at all, is completely illogical. I mean,

556
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 7: I believe they probably think the Earth is flat as well.

557
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 2: My internet brain says like, there's just enough evidence, not

558
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 2: in this story, but that people will do wild shit

559
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 2: for a story that gets absurd levels of engagement.

560
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:27,239
Speaker 7: The thing about the Internet is that anyone that has

561
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 7: grown up on the Internet knows you have to approach

562
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 7: anything with a load of skepticism, because nothing is true

563
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 7: on the internet, is it. But this story I think

564
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 7: is so obscene that it's almost not scriptable. It's just

565
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 7: so bunkers. Why would I make that up? Why would

566
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 7: anyone make that up? But then everyone else actually pivoted.

567
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 7: I mean everyone's an expert on the internet, as you know.

568
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 7: I was then told that the tank was too small.

569
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 7: So the fish that was dead, well, I don't know,

570
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 7: semi dead, was put into a tank of water, and

571
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 7: apparently that tank was not good enough, and I was

572
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 7: actually told by someone that the fish would have been

573
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 7: better on the lawn.

574
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 4: Oh my god, wherey.

575
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 7: Normal people are on the internet, doesn't it.

576
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 9: People were saying, you know, you needed a thirty forty

577
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 9: to fifty gallon tank, and I was like, why would

578
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 9: I have that much water stored in a receptor just

579
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 9: just in case a fish appeared?

580
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 7: If I was prepared, like very good evidence, I would

581
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 7: have put the fish on the lawn.

582
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 4: That's true. Yes, it would be like, oh and he

583
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 4: just happened to happen.

584
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 2: What was your relationship to the internet, you know, before

585
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 2: this incident.

586
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 7: Well, I kind of grew up on the internet, you know,

587
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 7: typical many or chronically online, and I understand the nuances

588
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 7: of the Internet.

589
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 4: What is the next step?

590
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 2: At what point are you like, we got to start

591
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 2: out as an account, like where do you go from there?

592
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 7: So I actually didn't start that account really really, it's

593
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 7: one of the people on med Twitter isn't me started

594
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 7: it as a joke, obviously as a joke. It's truly,

595
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 7: it is truly brilliant. It's a very good idea. I

596
00:32:57,760 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 7: think it's even more funny that I didn't set the

597
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 7: accoun The tweets coming from that account have been actually

598
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 7: very funny. You read they are very good.

599
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 2: It's only the other person who's run the account. Yeah, yeah,

600
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 2: she has her own social media teape.

601
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 4: That's wild.

602
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it felt like growing up online as well.

603
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 2: You know you see famous Internet animals and how there's

604
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 2: like a like a voice curated for them.

605
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 7: Yeah, and so he's not me, not me.

606
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 2: So in the meantime, as she is becoming a main

607
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 2: character unbeknownst to her. What are the next steps with Alice?

608
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:32,520
Speaker 2: You've got her in the smaller tank. People are giving

609
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 2: you shit what happens next?

610
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 7: But put all the chemicals in and remove the chemicals

611
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:37,959
Speaker 7: you're not meant to have. I don't want to talk

612
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 7: too much about that because then it becomes like a

613
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 7: fish care podcast, which I.

614
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 4: Think, yeah, that might be all good.

615
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 7: Set up a tank and make sure the tank was okay,

616
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 7: and then I had to go to a conference with you. There.

617
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 7: It was very anxious time leaving this newly found half

618
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 7: dead fish in a tank.

619
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 4: He had a camera right brilliant to keep an eye on.

620
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 7: To keep an eye what it was. It was like

621
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 7: a camera from like just a normal you know, like

622
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 7: a security camera thing. I moved Pep and I on

623
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 7: the level of anxiety that leads to that.

624
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 4: But we no, I mean, it's I'd be interested to hear.

625
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 7: It's just law, isn't it. I'm not sure. I'm not

626
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 7: sure that's the term, you know, like it's just I

627
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 7: don't know. I mean, I don't know how to define.

628
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 7: It is a weird circumstance that I found this fish lived,

629
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 7: But then I had to leave the house and I

630
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 7: didn't like that. I'd rather care for the fish in

631
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 7: a weird way make sure she doesn't die. She didn't

632
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 7: at that time.

633
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 4: You did get to see her again, Yes.

634
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 7: Yeah, yes, I came home and fine.

635
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,440
Speaker 2: So while you're at this conference, do people know that

636
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 2: you're the guy or is it like you're being normal

637
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 2: Ben at this conference and secretly, you know, checking your

638
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:47,240
Speaker 2: fish camera.

639
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,439
Speaker 7: I mean I was being normal Ben, but everyone knew.

640
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 7: And it was very embarrassing really because at this point

641
00:34:55,080 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 7: it hit like the national media and the media actually

642
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 7: and people had seen it and people have said, oh,

643
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 7: I saw this in the Guardian. It's almost surreal the situation.

644
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,400
Speaker 7: It's difficult to explain how you get to the point

645
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 7: of people you've not met reading about you in an

646
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 7: actual newspaper about a fish you've had on the floor.

647
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 4: It's a weird story.

648
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:22,320
Speaker 2: But I So there's a series of things that happen.

649
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 2: It seems like Alice moves into a bigger tank, she

650
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 2: gets a boyfriend, there's a merch store, there's a GoFundMe

651
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 2: take me through this series of days. It's so much happened.

652
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 7: So the first thing that happened was a go fund me,

653
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:39,760
Speaker 7: and that was because I had maybe one thousand people

654
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 7: tell me the tank was too small, and I was like,

655
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 7: all right, fine, I'll buy a new tank in because

656
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:46,359
Speaker 7: that's what the Internet tells me to do. But then

657
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 7: looking at fish tanks, they're so expensive and I was like, well,

658
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:51,359
Speaker 7: I can't justify spending you know, two three hundred quid.

659
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 7: So I made this go for me. Mainly, it was

660
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 7: mainly aimed at the people who will giving me shit

661
00:35:56,760 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 7: saying you should get a bigger tank if you care

662
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,439
Speaker 7: about animals. I was like, well, thank you very much,

663
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,280
Speaker 7: you do it. But that actually got a lot of traction.

664
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 7: I got a lot of a lot of money donated

665
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 7: to that. But then a company called Fluvial, well known

666
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 7: fish company, but I didn't I don't know this. I

667
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 7: didn't know this at the time messaged me and said, oh,

668
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 7: we can give you a tank for Alice. And I

669
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:18,959
Speaker 7: was like, oh, that's nice, that's good. So I didn't

670
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 7: need the money on the go for me after all.

671
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 7: So I rough unded all that back and they gat

672
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 7: And you know, you're on the internet and you asked

673
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 7: for advice about stuff, and people give you loads of

674
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 7: ship whereas this email. There was this bloke at this

675
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 7: company that I was emailing and you know, stupid questions

676
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,439
Speaker 7: about fish I didn't know the answer to, but which

677
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 7: were patently stupid. I would email and ask him and

678
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 7: held answered me and you know, give me actual advice

679
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 7: rather than telling me I'm an idiot for not having

680
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 7: a tank set up the MERRG. I actually bought all

681
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:46,319
Speaker 7: of those T shirts. I think it's shipping soon. That

682
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 7: was that wasn't set up by me. That was set

683
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,840
Speaker 7: up by Alice the fish aunt Alice mainly as a

684
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 7: tongue in cheek thing because people get asking for it,

685
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 7: but then people including me, bought stuff from it.

686
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:01,560
Speaker 4: Yes, I emerged from your own fish.

687
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,319
Speaker 7: That's great, but I think that ships soon. So I've

688
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 7: got a T shirt with a picture of half dead

689
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 7: fish on.

690
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 2: And then Barney came into the mix. How did Barney

691
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:12,879
Speaker 2: come into the mix?

692
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:15,839
Speaker 7: I imagine I know nothing about fish, but I imagine it's

693
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 7: lonely to be a fish in a tank on your

694
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 7: own without a mate. So I went to shop and

695
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 7: bought a new fish to go along with Alice. I

696
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 7: picked Barney. I'm not sure why I picked the name Barney,

697
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 7: but I think he kind of suited him. And I

698
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 7: realized I'm accidentally naming these fish tropical iphoons in terms

699
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:33,760
Speaker 7: of like the age.

700
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true.

701
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 8: The next fish, I think, all sudden done.

702
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 2: You had Alice for about a week, right, a week? Yeah,

703
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 2: tell me about her, tell me about like this weird experience.

704
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 7: It's kind of the odd thing about it is that

705
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,959
Speaker 7: it's given me a really like a new hobby out

706
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 7: of nowhere. And I've got a weird connection to this

707
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 7: stupid fish now Barney, I mean, because of the relationship

708
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 7: that I then found on the law. Right, But you'd

709
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 7: think that fish didn't have personalities, but you kind of

710
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 7: notice things about them. It's me projecting my own you know,

711
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 7: like my own care about these fish, you know, onto

712
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 7: the fish arm. So I'm going to keep Barney, obviously,

713
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 7: I'm not going to kill him. Alice's memory in this

714
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 7: bigger tank, and then get you know, get him some

715
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 7: mates to keep him company. So it's the start of

716
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 7: a beautiful hobby. Can you say, a beautiful hobby?

717
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 2: When Alice passed away, did you just did you find her?

718
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 4: One morning? What happened?

719
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 7: Yeah? So I found her. She was just in the

720
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:38,919
Speaker 7: tank in the morning, like in a typical fishy way,

721
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 7: like floating in the tank. It actually upset me, to

722
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 7: be fair, because I was like, why you only know

723
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 7: this fish for a week? And I think I think

724
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 7: it's a concept that it was nearly dead or maybe dead,

725
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:51,280
Speaker 7: and I saved her and then she died. I just died.

726
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 7: Despite that, it's a bit like, oh, you know, like

727
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 7: you tried and failed, and it's a bit sad.

728
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 4: But you didn't fail though I don't know.

729
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 2: I mean, that's like part of what I was a

730
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:04,800
Speaker 2: random person online that was very moved by this because

731
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 2: it was just like you, you gave this creature a

732
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 2: lovely last week of their life.

733
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 4: That's so it was really kind.

734
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 7: And I suppose it's nicer to again I don't know,

735
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 7: but I suppose it's nicer to die in a tank

736
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 7: than it is on the lawn.

737
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 2: I think within minutes when you when you posted that

738
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:24,879
Speaker 2: she'd passed away and there is a huge outpouring.

739
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:27,480
Speaker 4: What was what was that like?

740
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:31,319
Speaker 7: It was nice? Actually, it seems like I mean, there's

741
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 7: a lot of funny responses because it's the best way

742
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 7: to deal with sadness is to take the piss, which

743
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 7: is good. I enjoyed it. But the fact that the

744
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,480
Speaker 7: story is like resonated a bit and it's made people happy.

745
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:45,799
Speaker 7: You know, it's a wholesome story, isn't it. It's a

746
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:48,760
Speaker 7: bit of a sad end, it's still a wholesome.

747
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:49,279
Speaker 4: Story, it is.

748
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, the fan art was there's so much of it,

749
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:54,320
Speaker 2: first of all, and it was very sweet.

750
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 4: And then you went to a Taylor Swift concert and

751
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 4: I went to a.

752
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,760
Speaker 7: Taylor Swift concert, the traditional way to send off a fish.

753
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:01,800
Speaker 4: Yeah.

754
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 2: On the internet side, I want to go back to

755
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 2: what you were talking about at the beginning, where now

756
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,279
Speaker 2: it's like, how big did your online audience grow in.

757
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 4: The space of this very chaotic week with Alice?

758
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 7: I think maybe ten to fifteen thousand. I mean I

759
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 7: only had I think, like five thousand to start with.

760
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,919
Speaker 7: But yeah, so I've gained fifteen thousand people that care

761
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 7: only about fish.

762
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 4: Now where do you go from here?

763
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 7: I'm opening a branded set of pet shops. No, No,

764
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 7: I don't know. I mean I'm gonna I mean, Barney's

765
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:35,239
Speaker 7: obviously still here. I imagine people still want to hear

766
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 7: some updates about that fish that's salad fish, his new

767
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 7: friends called CD except well when they finally get there.

768
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:48,320
Speaker 7: But still every tweet I make that isn't about fish

769
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 7: gets a lot of fish for bliind. So you know,

770
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 7: it's a bit like you've got to give the audience

771
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:53,919
Speaker 7: what they.

772
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 4: Want, more fish content to come.

773
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's more fish content to come. Yeah. The path

774
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 7: of polase resistance wasn't it? Just continue on that and

775
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 7: it's easier than writing it.

776
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Ben. We'll be hearing more

777
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:08,240
Speaker 2: from him soon. And when we come back, I consult

778
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 2: an expert to ask the follow up question. Most of

779
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:14,760
Speaker 2: you were too cowardly too. What does becoming the fish

780
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 2: guy do to your brain? Welcome back to sixteenth minute.

781
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 2: When I was in fifth grade, my class inexplicably did

782
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,240
Speaker 2: a production of Hamlet, and I got to play Hamlet,

783
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 2: but only acts one through three. So I got to

784
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:44,800
Speaker 2: do Hamlet up until I killed Polonius, and then Katya

785
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:47,680
Speaker 2: Andrad just did the rest of it. We were both

786
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 2: really good, And today we are talking about a fish

787
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 2: that fell from the sky and derailed the life of

788
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 2: a junior doctor. So after I spoke with Ben Baska,

789
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:59,760
Speaker 2: I kept an eye on his posts, and sure enough,

790
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 2: by fish empire has continued to grow. Less than two

791
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 2: months after Alice. The man has over fifteen fish, a

792
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 2: whole ass ecosystem, and the tank has a golden decal

793
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:16,440
Speaker 2: on the side that reads the Alice Memorial Tank and

794
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 2: is flanked by fan art from her Brief, Beautiful Week

795
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 2: with Ben. Ben's story felt like a great opportunity to

796
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 2: ask something that I've been wondering about since this show began.

797
00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:30,920
Speaker 2: What does going viral do to you psychologically? There's no

798
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 2: definitive answer, but psychologists have been studying this for decades

799
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:38,760
Speaker 2: at this point, and I consulted one of Internet Psychology's

800
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:44,799
Speaker 2: go to guys, doctor Elias Ambujade, clinical professor, researcher and

801
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 2: writer at Stanford where he is the chief of the

802
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 2: Anxiety Disorder Section and director of the OCD Clinic and

803
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 2: the Impulse Controlled Disorders Clinic. Instead of asking him, as

804
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 2: a lifelong OCD sufferer, how to personally improve my life,

805
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:02,760
Speaker 2: I asked him about the fish guy. Abujade is also

806
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 2: the author of the new book A Leader's Destiny as

807
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 2: well as the twenty twelve book Virtually You The Dangerous

808
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 2: Powers of the E Personality. Talking about these isolated examples

809
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,240
Speaker 2: like Ben Besca and Alice. The goldfish is what doctor

810
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 2: Abujade does best in my opinion, and he gave me

811
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:22,879
Speaker 2: some insight into what Ben was going through and what

812
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 2: you can do if the algorithm tries to kill you

813
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 2: like an English bird of prey wood to a large goldfish.

814
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:33,439
Speaker 5: Here's our talk, Elias Abusheti. I'm a clinical professor at

815
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 5: Stanford University. I also run the program and Internet Health

816
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,759
Speaker 5: and Society at SEARS, and I am medical center. I

817
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 5: study the intersection of technology and psychology and have done

818
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 5: so almost twenty years now, hard to believe, and have

819
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 5: addressed my work both to the general audience of Internet

820
00:43:56,400 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 5: choosers but also scientists researchers.

821
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:04,400
Speaker 2: So interested in your work, especially because I mean a

822
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:10,320
Speaker 2: very eventful twenty years for life online in your study

823
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 2: and observation, what does receiving a ton of unexpected attention

824
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:17,839
Speaker 2: online due to you.

825
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 5: Well, online attention has in a way become a proxy

826
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 5: for self worth. We value ourselves to the extent that

827
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 5: we get likes, retweets, and all manner of online attention.

828
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:38,760
Speaker 5: It is a very valuable currency and that in that sense,

829
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 5: and going viral represents sort of the extreme version of this,

830
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 5: you know, something that everyone online is supposed to aspire

831
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:56,320
Speaker 5: to because it represents popularity, it represents cloud, and it

832
00:44:56,520 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 5: represents self esteem.

833
00:44:59,239 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 2: I mean, at this point of like, it's fairly common

834
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 2: knowledge the internet is addictive, But in your estimation, has

835
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 2: it evolved in the ways it's become addictive? What are

836
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 2: the changes you've noticed in the way that we're sort

837
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:15,240
Speaker 2: of kept tethered to social media and to the Internet.

838
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's really interesting.

839
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 5: I mean, I think a lot of the obvious problems

840
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 5: that most people recognize today, we're already there, you know,

841
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:31,040
Speaker 5: a couple of decades ago, and what we've seen is

842
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:34,799
Speaker 5: just this kind of intensification and.

843
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 6: Gradual worstening.

844
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 5: One personality trait I've I've worked on and talked about

845
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 5: is narcissism. And and you can see how if you

846
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 5: have any sort of vulnerability to that, or any kind

847
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 5: of kernel of that and your personality structure, the Internet

848
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 5: can and intensify it, you know, by giving you a stage,

849
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 5: by giving you quote unquote followers, by by increasing your

850
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:15,040
Speaker 5: sense of how how popular and effective you are. It's

851
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 5: hard for anyone to be totally immune to that. But

852
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 5: if you already have those tendencies, and then they can

853
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 5: become quite magnified. That's what we see, I think, repeatedly

854
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 5: and an online That's just one of the many personality

855
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 5: traits that the Internet and Internet related technologies act on.

856
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 5: And they've all as the Internet has evolved, they've all

857
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 5: been kind of further intensified.

858
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:50,360
Speaker 2: And and and again it feels like there's a common

859
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 2: consensus that I agree with that this is clearly bad

860
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 2: for me, But I can also directly point to so

861
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:02,280
Speaker 2: many positive in my life, whether it was community building

862
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 2: or relationships or whatever it was, that wouldn't have been

863
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 2: possible without the Internet. Because you've observed this and studied

864
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 2: this for so long. For people that do have a

865
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 2: healthier relationship to the Internet, what is the balance? You know,

866
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:18,840
Speaker 2: you always get sort of the classic go touch grasp,

867
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 2: but in so many ways, you know, jobs or communication,

868
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:26,399
Speaker 2: it's now there's not many alternatives. How have you seen

869
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:30,279
Speaker 2: people successfully manage relationships with this technology?

870
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 6: Well, it is.

871
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:34,840
Speaker 5: It is a very fricky balance, I think, and it's

872
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 5: gotten almost impossible to pull off because, as you pointed out,

873
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 5: you know, you can't be a professional today and not have.

874
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 6: A strong online presence.

875
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:52,280
Speaker 5: You can't be you know, a quote unquote normal teenager

876
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:57,080
Speaker 5: and not have a social media presence. So these things

877
00:47:57,120 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 5: have become very ingrained. And I think sort of how

878
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 5: culture has evolved is by the time we recognize that

879
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 5: the dangers we had already become addicted, and the culture

880
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 5: has moved so sort of deep into embracing these technologies

881
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:21,439
Speaker 5: that we can't turn looklock. So it's not about kind

882
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 5: of going back to nineteen ninety seven or whatever. It's

883
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:34,920
Speaker 5: more about trying to maintain some grounding in real life,

884
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 5: whatever that means anymore. And I think there's some, you know,

885
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 5: there's some encouraging signals in that direction, Like I teach

886
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:48,640
Speaker 5: undergrads at Tanford and Berkeley, and there seems to be

887
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:52,359
Speaker 5: sort of a newfound respect and a new kind of

888
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:58,360
Speaker 5: coolness attached to going off of the of the online

889
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:03,839
Speaker 5: a grid that least temporarily. We see people souring on

890
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 5: online dating, for example, thinking the greatest decision not to

891
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 5: look for a partner or romantic interests on dating apps.

892
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:18,840
Speaker 5: So there are attempts, I think, overall their healthy ones.

893
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:22,840
Speaker 5: But again, our goal should not be, you know, believe

894
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 5: the last twenty years of our lives.

895
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 2: Right going back to the subject of this interview, he's

896
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:33,520
Speaker 2: this really nice guy named Ben who found a live

897
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 2: goldfish that had fallen out of a bird's beak. It

898
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:41,719
Speaker 2: fell into his lawn and he rescued it while it

899
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 2: was still alive, and this was he tweeted about it.

900
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:47,719
Speaker 2: He was, you know, an active Twitter user. It was

901
00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 2: interesting as we were talking just listening to him be like,

902
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 2: this is really exciting, but it's also really weird, and

903
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 2: it comes with kind of this very specific pressure to

904
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, this is you now. And I

905
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 2: know you've written a book called Virtually You, The Internet

906
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 2: and the Fracturing of the Self.

907
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 6: Could you tell me a.

908
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:10,240
Speaker 2: Little bit about that as we are constructing our Internet selves.

909
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:14,239
Speaker 2: This feels like a very kind of like extreme specific example,

910
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 2: but I could feel sort of the nucleus of listening

911
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:20,720
Speaker 2: to someone kind of shifting the way they've constructed themselves

912
00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:24,239
Speaker 2: online because of this random thing that happened to them

913
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 2: and went viral.

914
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:29,200
Speaker 5: And my book Virtually You, I talked about how we

915
00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:33,320
Speaker 5: have an e personality that I can be quite distinct

916
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 5: from how we from normal life. So we tend to

917
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:40,479
Speaker 5: be more aggressive on to be more impulsive. We tend

918
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 5: to show more narcissism, less patients, et cetera, and that

919
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 5: version of ourselves can be can feel more sort of attractive,

920
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:59,399
Speaker 5: more liberated to us, and we end up buying into it,

921
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 5: sometimes excessively and sometimes at the expense of who we

922
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 5: really are and what our real personality structure is about. Now,

923
00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:16,839
Speaker 5: in this example you shared, it does seem like you

924
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 5: know a nice individual who had some sort of strange

925
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:25,960
Speaker 5: thing happened to him practically overnight. Has his life became

926
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:31,080
Speaker 5: about that, And I see parallels with what I've written about.

927
00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:33,800
Speaker 5: But what I what I like about how you described

928
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 5: him is that he recognized that it's weird. He recognized

929
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 5: that it doesn't doesn't quite make make sense, and sometimes

930
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 5: online we stopped like we lose that ability to distinguish

931
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 5: between what's like weird and what's real, what's fake and

932
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 5: what's around it. You also say that he recognizes that

933
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 5: the pressure of kind of embracing this persona keeping it going,

934
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:09,400
Speaker 5: And I also appreciate that about the story, because most

935
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:11,920
Speaker 5: of us or many of us, don't see it as

936
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 5: as pressure. We end up somehow again liking it more

937
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:23,440
Speaker 5: than we should without acknowledging the pressure person that's not

938
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:24,480
Speaker 5: really who we are.

939
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 2: It felt like he was saying and I would feel

940
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:30,719
Speaker 2: the same way in the same position, Like you've been

941
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 2: given this strange gift, you know, of all of these.

942
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 5: Eyes and in the gifts of virality, Yes.

943
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:40,799
Speaker 2: The gift and the curse. I mean, I think of

944
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:43,759
Speaker 2: all of these other people who are turned into these

945
00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 2: Internet main characters, and how some people you know know

946
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:52,120
Speaker 2: I reject this, I don't want anything to do with this,

947
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:54,919
Speaker 2: and others. You can see the wheels turning a little

948
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:57,239
Speaker 2: bit of like, how like is it possible to make

949
00:52:57,280 --> 00:52:58,799
Speaker 2: this moment a part of who I am?

950
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 4: Does it even make I think?

951
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 5: I mean, I think there is a way to have

952
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:08,759
Speaker 5: fun with it, embrace it temporarily without allowing it to

953
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:10,719
Speaker 5: get to your head too much. I mean, the thing

954
00:53:10,760 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 5: about virality is that it doesn't last, right, Like we

955
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:18,840
Speaker 5: we get tired of people who go viral and stories

956
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 5: that go viral pretty quickly. I mean, online we're constantly

957
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:24,640
Speaker 5: on the about you know, the next big thing or

958
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:30,960
Speaker 5: the next story. I think acknowledging this aspect of virality

959
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 5: is important if you don't want to end up being,

960
00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 5: you know, the victim of it, right because if you

961
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:41,640
Speaker 5: embrace it and assume that you can keep it up,

962
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:46,960
Speaker 5: then you're going against all the lessons that internet history

963
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 5: has taught us.

964
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:49,640
Speaker 6: But if you can, you.

965
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 5: Know, play with it, have fun with it, but you know,

966
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 5: remember how long that it's not going to be superlasting,

967
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:01,440
Speaker 5: then I think that's that's a healthy or more realistic approach.

968
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:06,400
Speaker 2: If I came to you and said, hey, I just

969
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 2: completely randomly became an Internet main character, I don't really

970
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:15,279
Speaker 2: want this attention, I'm overwhelmed by it.

971
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 4: How would you advise me?

972
00:54:17,840 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 5: I guess one thing I would I would tell you

973
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:26,360
Speaker 5: is to reassure you that internet memes have a finite

974
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:32,360
Speaker 5: lifespan that as heavy and overwhelming as this feels, as

975
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:37,799
Speaker 5: everlastings as it feels, it has a beginning and middle, end,

976
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 5: an end, and it will be shorter living than you

977
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:47,239
Speaker 5: probably assume it is. I would I would caution you

978
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 5: against responding, you know, impulsively to whatever the situation is,

979
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:58,279
Speaker 5: because that's another thing that people under pressure will do

980
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 5: online and they end up up often regretting their reaction.

981
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:08,759
Speaker 5: I think through how you react, don't do anything that

982
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:13,279
Speaker 5: might sort of compound the problem. Lastly, I've done a

983
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:15,359
Speaker 5: lot of work on privacy.

984
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:16,600
Speaker 6: Online privacy.

985
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 5: Yes, you know, one of the biggest sort of victims

986
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 5: of online culture, the fact that we now live in

987
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:27,759
Speaker 5: a privacy age, and privacy and healthy psychology go hand

988
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:31,719
Speaker 5: in hand. So I would urge you, despite this sort

989
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 5: of viral state that you're in, I would urge you

990
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:41,280
Speaker 5: to be protective of your privacy to the extent that

991
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:45,120
Speaker 5: you can, despite the Internet attention.

992
00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 2: And then the flip side of that, the flip side

993
00:55:49,520 --> 00:55:53,400
Speaker 2: of that question is I approach you and I say

994
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:58,200
Speaker 2: I want to go viral, I want to become famous online.

995
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 2: I think I can handle it, and I don't think

996
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:01,880
Speaker 2: it'll affect me.

997
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 4: How would you advise me?

998
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 5: What I would do in this case is, you know,

999
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:16,120
Speaker 5: put my therapist's hat on and ask what it is

1000
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:21,840
Speaker 5: about you know, your your current life, your offline life,

1001
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:26,760
Speaker 5: even your online life that feels so empty and hollow

1002
00:56:27,080 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 5: that you would be desperately seeking online fame. I would

1003
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:38,440
Speaker 5: recommend that you not look for online fame for the

1004
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 5: sake of online fame.

1005
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:43,320
Speaker 6: But but do what you want.

1006
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 5: To do and go for the goals you always wanted

1007
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 5: to go for. And if internet fame happens, it will

1008
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 5: be for the right reasons and not for the sake of.

1009
00:56:55,719 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 4: I love that answer.

1010
00:56:56,760 --> 00:56:59,759
Speaker 2: Yes, it's like sometimes it happens, but hopefully God, I

1011
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:02,040
Speaker 2: mean for the few that it happens on their terms.

1012
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 10: I think just the idea of wanting Internet frame at

1013
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 10: all costs, I mean, that's the track that a lot

1014
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:13,640
Speaker 10: of culture falls into, right Like I want to be

1015
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:17,360
Speaker 10: an influence or whatever whatever it takes, and that's just

1016
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:18,520
Speaker 10: not healthy.

1017
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 2: And then my last question is I don't know if

1018
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:23,400
Speaker 2: this is a hard question in or not, so I

1019
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 2: apologize in advance. Is there anything about the state of

1020
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 2: today's Internet how we're consuming to feel positive about.

1021
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:39,120
Speaker 5: I think there's a new found awareness that we may

1022
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:45,000
Speaker 5: have embraced some technologies, we may have embraced some platforms

1023
00:57:45,040 --> 00:57:51,000
Speaker 5: blindly without sort of thinking through our behavior. There's I

1024
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 5: think broad recognition around that, and I think that's the

1025
00:57:55,800 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 5: necessary first step toward being able to correct things. You know,

1026
00:58:01,960 --> 00:58:06,240
Speaker 5: like awareness, education are absolutely essential, and I think there's

1027
00:58:06,600 --> 00:58:11,240
Speaker 5: a lot more of that today compared to even a

1028
00:58:11,320 --> 00:58:15,320
Speaker 5: couple of years ago. That's the silver lining I see.

1029
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 5: Whether it's sufficient is a different story altogether, but at

1030
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:26,200
Speaker 5: least it's necessary that we have a healthier dose of

1031
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:29,920
Speaker 5: that now compared to the recent past.

1032
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:33,240
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to doctor Abujade, and you can

1033
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 2: find his new book, A Leader's Destiny by Psychology, Personality

1034
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:40,400
Speaker 2: and character make all the difference at the link in

1035
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:43,560
Speaker 2: the description. A little over a month after Ben Baskett

1036
00:58:43,560 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 2: and I first talked, I checked in again to see

1037
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 2: how he was doing and tell him a little bit

1038
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:50,080
Speaker 2: about my chat with doctor Abujade.

1039
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:51,640
Speaker 4: Who are his updates?

1040
00:58:52,480 --> 00:58:52,600
Speaker 8: Hi?

1041
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:54,680
Speaker 4: Ben, how are you good?

1042
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:55,640
Speaker 7: Thank you? How are you?

1043
00:58:55,920 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 2: So we haven't spoken since about this time the last month.

1044
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:06,080
Speaker 2: Tell me what has changed in your in your fish life?

1045
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:16,000
Speaker 7: So I now have three fish name name. So Barney

1046
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:20,440
Speaker 7: is the original companion to Alice. He's still around. He

1047
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:23,440
Speaker 7: did have some kind of weird fungal infection for a while,

1048
00:59:23,600 --> 00:59:26,080
Speaker 7: which I think is new. But he's better and I

1049
00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 7: think actually it's salt that cured him. Apparently salt is

1050
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:33,160
Speaker 7: like a cure all for goldfish. We've got Daphne, looks

1051
00:59:33,200 --> 00:59:35,480
Speaker 7: a little bit like Alice, but it is a bit stockier.

1052
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 7: And then we've got Edgar, who is a bit like

1053
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:42,080
Speaker 7: a bruiser kind of bloke who's got like a little mustache.

1054
00:59:42,080 --> 00:59:46,439
Speaker 7: I imagine him like a American prohibition kind of guy

1055
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:47,600
Speaker 7: with a with a mini gun.

1056
00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:50,520
Speaker 2: Okay, I like that. There is also, yeah, the applied

1057
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 2: personality is that is critical a pet ownership.

1058
00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 7: It's very important. And then obviously we've got Charlie's Angels,

1059
00:59:57,640 --> 00:59:59,600
Speaker 7: which I think I had last time. I can't remember.

1060
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:02,800
Speaker 7: Loads of mini fish. There's how there's thirteen of them,

1061
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 7: loads of mini little fish.

1062
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:10,200
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, that's this is wonderful news. Is this like

1063
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:13,280
Speaker 2: a lifelong thing, have you? Because that was my question

1064
01:00:13,400 --> 01:00:16,400
Speaker 2: going in, I was like, is he going to commit

1065
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:18,360
Speaker 2: to being the fish guy?

1066
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 7: I think I think it's probably yes, given everything has

1067
01:00:24,560 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 7: gone well with the you know, no fish has died.

1068
01:00:27,360 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 7: I mean, Barney tried his best, but you know, no

1069
01:00:29,880 --> 01:00:32,080
Speaker 7: fish has died. So it may be that I'm not

1070
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:35,040
Speaker 7: terrible at keeping fish. And I'm sure I said this

1071
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:37,840
Speaker 7: last time, but every time that I post anything on

1072
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:41,840
Speaker 7: Twitter that isn't directly fish related, I almost get abuse

1073
01:00:42,000 --> 01:00:44,440
Speaker 7: for not posting about the fish. How there you have

1074
01:00:44,560 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 7: other hobbies or other things to talk about. People have

1075
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:49,840
Speaker 7: said things like, oh, yes, you know, we followed you

1076
01:00:49,960 --> 01:00:52,800
Speaker 7: for the fish and now we're learning about you know,

1077
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:55,360
Speaker 7: the intricacies of the UK medical system.

1078
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:56,400
Speaker 4: That's fascinating.

1079
01:00:56,440 --> 01:00:59,760
Speaker 2: I have a theory that, Yeah, people that casually follow

1080
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:03,320
Speaker 2: any one online get really upset if they learn more

1081
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:06,440
Speaker 2: than like three things about you, Like you just cannot

1082
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:09,960
Speaker 2: be too multifaceted or people kind of freak out. It

1083
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:12,600
Speaker 2: seems like you're posting whatever the fuck you want. Anyways,

1084
01:01:12,640 --> 01:01:13,280
Speaker 2: Do you do you.

1085
01:01:13,200 --> 01:01:15,720
Speaker 4: Feel pressure to fish post a certain amount?

1086
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:18,320
Speaker 7: No? Not really. I mean I like posting about the

1087
01:01:18,360 --> 01:01:21,120
Speaker 7: fish because they are quite funny and the amount of

1088
01:01:21,200 --> 01:01:24,200
Speaker 7: you know, stupid ship any animal does, let alone a

1089
01:01:24,240 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 7: load of fish, you know, Sharing that on Twitter is

1090
01:01:27,520 --> 01:01:30,640
Speaker 7: actually quite it's quite entertaining. It's also it's a good

1091
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 7: way to sort of like document as well, you know,

1092
01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:35,880
Speaker 7: things that have changed over the past month or so.

1093
01:01:36,520 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 2: You know, we'll keep doing this. I'll check in with

1094
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:42,240
Speaker 2: you in a year and see how life has changed.

1095
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:46,720
Speaker 2: Any fish goals, anything that you like, want to do

1096
01:01:46,800 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 2: that you haven't done. Are you going to expand? Are

1097
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:51,280
Speaker 2: you going to maintain? What's what's the plan?

1098
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:54,280
Speaker 7: So apparently someone warmed me about this before. It's called

1099
01:01:54,760 --> 01:01:58,720
Speaker 7: multi tank syndrome, and essentially you start with one fish

1100
01:01:58,800 --> 01:02:01,040
Speaker 7: or one tank and it's never enough. It's sort of

1101
01:02:01,080 --> 01:02:04,560
Speaker 7: like an addiction, and then you keep buying more tanks

1102
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 7: until your house is more tanks than house. I want

1103
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:11,760
Speaker 7: a marine tank for saltwater time.

1104
01:02:11,960 --> 01:02:13,200
Speaker 4: Oh wow, that's good.

1105
01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:17,240
Speaker 2: That's serious, right, it's a serious Well, that's I'm so

1106
01:02:17,360 --> 01:02:22,120
Speaker 2: glad that Alice has brought this new facet of your life.

1107
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:25,080
Speaker 7: It's going to be I'm quite excited to see what

1108
01:02:25,080 --> 01:02:26,880
Speaker 7: my electric bill is going to do. I imagine it's

1109
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:29,360
Speaker 7: going to go up significantly, such as.

1110
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:33,840
Speaker 4: The life of a fish father. Well, well, thank you

1111
01:02:33,880 --> 01:02:34,720
Speaker 4: for catching.

1112
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:37,480
Speaker 7: Up with me, then no problem.

1113
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:39,960
Speaker 2: Thanks so much to Ben Beska for being gained to

1114
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:41,520
Speaker 2: this unhinged case study.

1115
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:42,320
Speaker 4: And you can.

1116
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:46,960
Speaker 2: Follow his ongoing fish adventure on Twitter at besca. And

1117
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:51,360
Speaker 2: with that, Alice, our dearly departed goldfish and Ben Basca

1118
01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:59,200
Speaker 2: your sixteenth minute end now and for our moment of

1119
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 2: fun this week. This is a pet episode. Here is

1120
01:03:02,640 --> 01:03:06,600
Speaker 2: my perfect eldest boy Flee singing you a beautiful song.

1121
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:32,600
Speaker 8: My boy soprano, See you next week.

1122
01:03:35,920 --> 01:03:39,520
Speaker 2: Sixteenth Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio.

1123
01:03:40,080 --> 01:03:43,360
Speaker 2: It is written, posted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus.

1124
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:46,560
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichtman and Robert Evans.

1125
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:47,880
Speaker 4: The amazing Ian.

1126
01:03:47,720 --> 01:03:52,080
Speaker 2: Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme

1127
01:03:52,160 --> 01:03:55,720
Speaker 2: song is by Sad thirteen and Pet shout outs to

1128
01:03:55,760 --> 01:03:58,920
Speaker 2: our dog producer Anderson, my cat's fleeing Casper, and my

1129
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:04,200
Speaker 2: pet Rockbird will outlive us on bye

1130
01:04:06,720 --> 01:04:07,120
Speaker 5: Mm hmm