WEBVTT - Ephemeral Podcasts 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:04.840 A seminal is the protection of iHeart Radio. 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.640 The most important thing about making a podcast is getting 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:16.599 the tape SYNCD. 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:18.159 Somebody's got a clap with me? 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:19.759 Do y'all do a clap sync? 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:22.360 But it's more of the ritual of it. 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.240 Yeah, oh, I love it all right? Who wants to count? You? 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:25.479 Do it? 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:26.480 Because you're the boss of this? 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.600 The way do we we count on? Where do we clap? 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:31.760 Do you just want to go with one? 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:32.920 Living on the edge? 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:34.000 Nine after? 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:34.440 So? 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:35.000 Hurry up? 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:36.440 What three? 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:38.000 Two? 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:47.720 One? Then clap? That's the most involved clap for the 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.879 time being, at least in its current home. This is 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.000 going to be the last episode of Ephemeral. 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:58.760 We are canceling the show what why Well? 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:01.920 The algorith of them felt it wasn't hitting the right 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:03.520 taste clusters. 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:06.880 It seemed like the right moment to tackle a question 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.160 I've been curious about since the very beginning of this show. 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:15.520 How ephemeral are podcasts in twenty twenty three. It's easy 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.920 to assume their ubiquity. I've seen it estimated that between 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.959 three and four million podcasts currently exist, most available to 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:27.679 essentially anyone, anytime, anywhere. But if this feed went dark 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:34.160 today and disappeared from every podcast player. What then, don't 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.000 worry that's not going to happen, at least not for 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.480 the foreseeable future. But it makes me wonder just how 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.479 much ownership any one of us has in this dynamic, 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.000 and how history might look back upon this era in 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.400 which people have recorded, distributed, and archived for their own 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.720 voices to an unprecedented degree. Surely there's no shortage of 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.800 opinions on this. People that could talk about the business, 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:01.840 the tech, the cultural ramification, Google how to make your 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.400 podcast successful, and see how many hits you get. But 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.520 I am most interested in what other creators have to say, 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.960 and luckily I happen to know the hosts of some 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.800 of the longest running, most successful shows around. At least 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:16.960 with the words stuff in the. 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:21.240 Title, Welcome to stuff, you should know it's you meet Chuck. 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:23.519 Yeah, it's about to say. 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:25.280 Just like the old days, stuff to blow your mind. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:27.680 Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:28.600 name is Robert. 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:30.480 Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick. 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.240 Stuff you missed in history class. Hello, and welcome to 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.680 the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:38.280 Stuff they don't gort you to know. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.200 Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:42.360 my name is Nola. 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:43.640 They call me Ben. 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:45.959 Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of iHeartRadio. 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:47.840 I'm Annie Reach and I'm Lauren vogel Bomb. 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.880 But to me, this show is always Thill food Stuff. 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:56.320 Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum and 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.160 I'm Annie Reef and we are your hosts of this 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.480 a new show from How Stuff Works. 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:03.679 I'm gonna put your right on the spot off the 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.560 bat here. How long have you each been podcasting? 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.320 Oh geez, that's a tough question. 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:12.079 I would have done the math if I had done. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:13.960 This was going to be one of the questions. I 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.720 guess I've been working with the company for about twelve 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.079 eleven years, So I guess I've been podcasting for about nine. 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:22.359 Yeah, it'd be ten. 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.480 That sounds about right, because I started in twenty ten. 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:29.400 You started a year after me. Okay, right. I haven't 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.200 always been a host of podcasts, but I've always been 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.320 working in some capacity on podcasts since twenty ten. 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:41.680 Oh wow, hoof, I think I started in twenty twelve. 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:44.920 I think I've been on Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:46.560 since twenty fifteen. Is that right? 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.960 That sounds about right. I know that in twenty twenty 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.400 put out a ten year anniversary special of Stuff to 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:58.520 Blow Your Mind. So going back to when it was 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.840 Stuff from the Science Last that I hosted with Alison Loudermilk. 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:08.760 So yeah, what going on fourteen years? Does that sound 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:13.480 right now? Wait? Yeah, that would be right. 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.160 Josh has been doing it longer than me. 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.200 But only by a few months. Two thousand and eight 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:19.440 to twenty twenty three. 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:19.680 Is what? 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.640 This is our fifteenth year? Fifteenth? No, that's not right, 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:23.960 is it? 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.159 This is our fifteenth year in April? 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.240 I think crazy? Yeah, fifteen years, there's your answer. 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:34.320 The twenty eleven when we started that sounds about right 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.200 right around there. Yeah. We had a different podcast called 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:40.240 pop Stuff that we worked on for a couple of 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:45.480 years that had a very devoted but also very small listenership. 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.760 God bless those fans, the small devoted fans. 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:49.880 They were so lovely. 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:51.400 I loved the very buch. 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:54.719 We moved on to Stuff You Missed in History Class 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.240 in twenty thirteen, So we are coming up on our 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.480 ten year anniversary. Yeah, but I had done some episodes 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:06.080 in twenty twelve. All right, so I think I already 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.400 passed mine, you did, WEFs didn't even notice. 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.960 Matt and I were in How Stuff Works before How 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:20.080 Stuff Works started messing with podcast We had someone in 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.839 the marketing department of How Stuff Works say, Hey, this 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.640 is shiny new thing. It's called podcasting. We're going to 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:31.480 do podcasting and it'll only be five minutes long. Everything. 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.479 We'll have stuff in the title right, and it'll refer 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:39.160 directly back to these articles because we're a print edutainment 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:45.120 company or a digital print company. And we quickly realized 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:47.000 we had misjudged our scope. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.400 Well, yeah, we were making a show called brain Stuff 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.839 with Marshall Brain I think that was in two thousand 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.680 and seven, because Stuff you should Know officially started in 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:55.640 two thousand and eight. 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.839 We really started the pivot toward podcasts with That's when 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:04.039 Nole came aboard as well and for a time edited 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:05.920 what every podcast. 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.960 It was twenty thirteen when I started more producing podcasts 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.640 and then gradually started being on Mike And now I've 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.360 kind of pivoted from producing to completely just you know, 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.800 talking on the things. So definitely been in the you know, 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:20.359 it's so hard to get on the ground floor of 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:22.680 anything these days, and I think all three of us, 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.320 hell all four of us, we're really lucky to be 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:27.360 able to do that for podcasting for the most part. 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:33.000 How many podcasts episodes do you estimate you have published 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:34.000 in that span of time? 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:35.720 One million, thousands? 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:41.240 Yeah, those thousands over certainly over one thousand, multiple thousand. 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.279 It gets kind of in the weeds pretty quick, man. 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.480 No clue, no clue, there's no, not really a good 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.400 way to count, as far as I know. 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.800 More than seventeen less than three trillion. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.720 Yeah, wait, why is there not a good way to count? 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.160 You know, because it's like, over the years, the new 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.880 episodes you were, and then you end up running repeat episodes, 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.279 and initially they were in a very hap dash sort 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:08.400 of fashion, you know, just whenever you needed some, and 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.800 then vault or rerun episodes became more of a standard 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:16.120 part of the production. And yeah, and then just over 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.280 the years, you know, sometimes you go back and take 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.640 out an old episode that just doesn't hold up anymore. 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:25.800 So there's there's not any like really solid record keeping 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.480 of the core stuff to blow your mind episodes. And 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:30.240 then eventually we reached the point where we're doing all 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:34.640 sorts of extra content as well, like short form episodes, 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.840 listener mail episodes. We've been in two years of weird 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:42.160 House cinema episodes on Fridays talking about strange movies. So like, 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.360 where do you count? How do you cut it? To 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.920 do the count is just yeah, years of content. 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.800 Somebody would have to just directly go count with a 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.520 human brain. I don't know of any automated way to 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:53.880 do it. 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.520 Yeah, and it just better things for human brains to do. 0:07:57.680 --> 0:07:57.920 Well. 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.400 We do two new ones a week every week. We'd 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:07.600 never take hiatus. We've done this math before of like 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.000 you know, two times fifty two, So one hundred and 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:11.680 four a year? 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:13.240 What is it? 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:14.000 Josh? 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.880 Well, we publish one hundred and four episodes a year, 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:21.200 not including leap. 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.080 Years or short stuffs. 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.600 N Oh, you're right, actually, so yeah, there'd be one 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.760 hundred and sixty carry the one now one hundred and 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.400 fifty six. So we published one hundred and fifty six 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:32.840 a year. 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.480 And then we also do classics, which we record intros for, 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.120 but those aren't really new. They're the three runs, three runs, 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:43.320 three runs with a new frame, no, four times fifteen. 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.240 I don't know, like fifteen sixteen hundred episodes, I'd. 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:48.200 Say, yeah, at least fifteen hundred. I bet it's with 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.560 the short stuffs. It's creeping toward eighteen. 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.240 So one million is I'm standing by that number. 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.840 Yes, math checks out for me. Do you ever reflect 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:03.240 on how much of your likeness is just floating around 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.640 out there on the internet, out there in space? And 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:08.880 if so, I mean, what do you what do you 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.280 think about that? What does that bring to mind? I do? 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.760 I do, mostly because I've talked about things on the 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.200 show that I have never talked about with, like my family, 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.840 my closest friends, And I think about that sometimes of 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:27.680 like the impact or outcome of a family member perhaps 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.679 stumbling upon that and thinking, oh, well, I know everything 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.800 about her because she's in my life, and then they don't. 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.440 There is sort of your professional voice, or you're the 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.560 person you put out there that might not necessarily be 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.160 entirely you. It's mostly you, but it's sort of like 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.199 a performance you're doing. It's sort of like a thing 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.040 you're doing. And so sometimes I wonder about that, and 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.080 I wonder about what people who know me think about that. 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:57.199 I don't know, I get in my head about people 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.560 analyzing it, which is probably just saying more about me 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.440 and analyzing me than anything else. But yeah, I do, 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:04.400 I do think about it. 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.559 I mean, it's an aspect of you, for for sure, 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.280 but right's it's not all of you. I kind of 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:15.560 like grew up professionally doing science videos on YouTube and 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:20.160 being the moderator for those, which, if you guys have 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.880 never been in the comment section of a YouTube video, 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.640 it is a wretched hive of scum and vilany. It 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.839 can be really harsh there, and especially towards ladies who 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.680 are doing anything. That was a very harsh but a 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:37.920 very useful mindsetting kind of jellification of what it is 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:42.079 to have this avatar of yourself out there running around 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.960 on the internet through people's lives that is not you. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:46.240 It's related to you. 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.360 It's something that you did. You know, you went into 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.720 that room for half an hour and recorded a video 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.240 that got cut down to five minutes. But just because 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.480 someone consumes that they don't they don't know you, And 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:58.920 that's like kind of a point of view that I 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.840 really had to develop in order to just preserve my 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:06.280 own skin. But so after that, I guess it does 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.400 not bother me. What other people might think of this 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.200 like weird facet of myself that I put out there. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:18.920 But knowing how different I sound on different shows is 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:23.240 really hilarious to me because I've had people who know 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.840 me and who don't know me tell me like like 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.400 you sound so different, like this is such a different thing, 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:30.600 and like like what's the real you? 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:35.240 And I'm like, oh, it freaks me out a little 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:39.720 bit sometimes, Like there was a period where I tried 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.760 to get verified on Twitter. This was way before the 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:47.600 current drama of Twitter verification, but I felt like people 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.840 had a way to access me twenty four to seven 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.000 in some cases to tell me the minutia of what 0:11:55.080 --> 0:12:00.400 they thought I had done wrong, and it was me 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:01.800 out a lot, And I was like, maybe if I 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.120 could make this a verified account and have it be 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.160 like my official work thing that is only work and 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.000 not personal stuff, maybe that would help. But Twitter said 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.200 I didn't meet the criteria to be verified, and then 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.679 I was like, I'm just going to use this publicly 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:21.080 facing thing less and turn off notifications for people I 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:27.120 don't follow, because it can really be a lot one. 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.000 I mean, I almost feel like more of my Internet presence, 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:32.920 at least on social media has to do with Star Wars, 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.440 and it does history and sewing and sewing, and so 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.440 I almost feel bad for people who follow me for 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:44.000 history content and get like NonStop greedo discussion. But I 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:47.600 also am highly cognizant of the fact that my age 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.760 has given me the gift of not having my youngest 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:56.280 and just most stupid behavior captured on social media. Same 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:58.920 so I'm kind of like, eh, whatever at this point, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.520 Like I'm an old my world is settled in terms 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:04.480 of like where I live and who I'm with and 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.400 all of that. Like, I don't feel quite as much 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.480 fret about things in that regard of like how will 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.040 a future person that meets me perceive me. It's like 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:19.120 that ship is saled. I'm good. I'm but really, I 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.440 think if you in the future when aliens come, they're 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:26.199 gonna find more pictures of me, like in an Amidala 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.360 costume than they are doing anything historical. I think the 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:35.640 thing that's been troubling me more recently has been the 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:41.440 just lightning fast development and quality of artificial intelligence and 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.000 that kind of stuff just over the last few years, 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:49.559 because like I know, when we were doing like writing 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.680 and editing articles every once in a while, there would 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:57.199 be this push to try to get like an automated 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:02.840 editing software, and ten years ago it was terrible, like 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:07.560 the results would be very bad. But there's stuff that's 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.800 being turned out now that seems like almost indistinguishable from 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.160 something that is created by a human being. And some 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.000 of the stuff that's going on now is specifically about 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.560 recreating the sounds of people's voices. And I'm like, how 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:27.040 long is it until there's just a fake version of 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:33.320 me that's got my voice but it's not me, you know. 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.160 I was just listening to an audiobook of Jory Lewis 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:41.200 Borges's short stories in the Car, and one of the 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:45.240 stories is about him contemplating the difference between himself and 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.560 the version of himself that he that has been put 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:53.160 out into the world via his writings, and I've got 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.320 it rather insightful. It's definitely worth a read for anyone 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.280 contemplating this sort of thing. But he sort of like 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:00.960 looks at it almost kind of like there's this sort 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.760 of antagonism there, like there's that guy, there's that Borges, 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:06.840 and then there's me. But then by the end of 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.240 the story he acknowledges that he's not really even sure 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:13.360 which Borges has written this story, written this little essay, 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:14.120 if you will. 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.200 I certainly have that experience if I listen to an 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.880 old episode. I mean, I know writers have this experience 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.120 all the time where you read something that you wrote 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.840 more than I don't know, two years ago, and you 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.800 don't it doesn't feel like something you wrote anymore. It 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.240 feels like you're reading something somebody else wrote, or at 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.120 least I have that experience. I think this is common 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:37.440 to writers. Rob would you say the same thing, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.320 I always consider it so weird when you have an 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:43.680 admirable I guess when you have like a writer or 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.600 some other somebody involved in some sort of creative process 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.000 where they have something that they made years ago and 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.640 they still kind of like stand by it. It's like 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:54.520 still out there and they're like, yeah, that's me. Where 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.800 it's like, I just don't feel that connection to anything 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:02.360 like that. Like I have a real hesitancy to even 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.720 put an episode in for a rerun, a Vaulved episode 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:07.560 that's more than a year old. And part of that 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.120 is science. You know, our understanding of the world moves 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.160 along and you have to worry about was this was 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.040 this evergreen have there been updates? But then other parts 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.800 of it are just like, I don't really know who 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.520 this guy was that did this episode, say three or 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:24.960 four years ago. I mean, especially now, it just seems 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:26.040 like such a long time ago. 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.480 I mean I wasn't even necessarily talking about would you 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.480 still stand by it or would you still make the 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.760 content the same way you did? I mean, regardless of that, 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.640 I just mean like the kind of basic alienation from 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.720 anything that comes out of your own creative process over time. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:44.680 You know, I read something I wrote a couple of 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.280 years ago, and it doesn't have that same level of familiarity, 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.840 you know how you like, you can't. It's hard to 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.920 catch your own typos in something because it's still a 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:56.760 part of you, and so when you read over it, 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.720 you don't see the mistakes. But after a certain period 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.000 of time, I think, whatever it is that finally lets 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.919 you see your own typos also makes it feel like 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.680 an alien piece of writing that you didn't actually write. 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:09.960 And I'd say the same thing is kind of true 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:14.000 of podcasting. If I listen to an episode I did 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.159 a few months ago, it's like, oh, yeah, that's still me. 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.720 I remember thinking all those things I remember, you know, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:21.720 I can still kind of like feel the texture of 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:24.040 where all these words and the sequence I spoke them 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.919 came from. But if I listened to something from several 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:28.919 years back, I don't feel that at all. It's just like, 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:30.240 who is this person talking? 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.040 I would say that it's something that you grow more 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:39.159 comfortable with, especially a show like ours, where we end 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.159 up telling anecdotal fun stories about our lives and our 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.439 families and loved ones and friends and things we do 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:46.080 in the real world. 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:47.320 It's kind of the fabric of. 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.080 The show, and so a lot of stuff is out there, 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.800 so you kind of have to kind of think about 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.320 what you want, you know, a couple of million people 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:59.760 to know about you when every time you open your mouth, Yeah. 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:04.640 What's is we we're like podcasts famous, so that means 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.720 we can walk down the street in basically any town 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:11.080 or city in the world and not get recognized. But 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.760 we still, you know, have lots of listeners and people 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.440 that like to write into us and you know, share 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:19.560 their stories with us and all that. So I feel 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.399 like we have the best of both worlds because we 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.560 never get thronged. Although I think even if we did 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.639 get recognized we probably still wouldn't get thronged anyway, but 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:29.960 I think you get the point. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:32.560 My daughter asked me if I was famous the other 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:34.520 day in the car, what'd you say? 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.280 I said, not really, we don't get thronged. 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:41.920 Yeah, And she said, okay, I don't want anyone throng 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:42.280 in us. 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.520 I mean, if somebody wanted to take the time to 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.719 sift through all of that, they could probably find us 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.760 telling the same story fifty or more times. You know, 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.040 we're saying the same little turn of phrase. I think 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:57.960 about that. You know how many times I've said the 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.320 exact little thing like it was me saying for the 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.280 first time. That bothers me and keeps me up nice. 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:05.720 But also you can't let it too much. You have 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.399 certain shows where it'll be listeners that go back and 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.639 mine old episodes and find little catchphrases and things that 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.080 the hosts say and sample them and put them into songs. 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.359 I think it's kind of cool, but it also freaks 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:19.119 me out a little bit that all that stuff is 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:20.320 available for the taking. 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.080 It's like any other skill, right there becomes this sort 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.719 of reflexive muscle memory aspect to some things. But then 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:34.720 you have this huge consideration of you know, being on 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.480 for lack of a better phrase, a permanent record, right, 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:43.160 and you begin to think more carefully about what you 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.720 put out in the world. And different people react to 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:51.640 that in very different ways. We are pretty open about 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:54.720 the fact that we only exist because an audience exists, right, 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.680 So we want to, to a reasonable and healthy degree, 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.280 allow those folks in. It's weird because then you encounter 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:04.840 parasocial phenomenon. 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:05.160 Right. 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.160 People who listen for a long time feel that they 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.280 have a personal relationship with you because they know a 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:11.840 lot about you. 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.760 And sometimes they feel entitled to tell you what you 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.320 should or should not say or do, because they feel 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:20.919 like they've got skin in the game, you know, and 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.320 and and you you can let them down, you know 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.239 what I mean, and like you know, and while you 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.200 don't want to let that cripple you and and make 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.399 you scared to say anything. Uh, it's certainly always in 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:32.920 the back of your mind, or at least in the 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.800 back of my mind. And I think I probably speak 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:36.520 for most of us when I say that it's a 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.239 calculation that goes into how we how we you know, 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:42.960 comport ourselves on Mike as to not quote unquote let 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:45.440 down our audience by saying something stupid. 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:48.160 I feel like every time I talk to you officially 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.200 on Mike, Alex, I end up getting really emotional. H 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.680 But this, like this made me think about my son 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.120 and thinking about the amount of things that I've said 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.840 into a microphone, number of conversations I've had with these 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:06.639 guys and you and others, and like, it's weird. You 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:11.600 can hear me get older and evolve on Mike, Like 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.280 anyone that has access to a computer can hear that. 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:17.320 Right now, you can hear me change and like went 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:21.040 we went back. We were going through our classic episodes 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.399 to get all the Illumination Global Unlimited ads, and going 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:26.800 back through those episodes, you could hear Ben and I 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.800 and we're not kids, but we're pretty fresh out of 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.800 college guys like trying our career, doing the best we 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.520 can do, making this thing happen, and creating something of 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.320 our own. And then to hear us, you know, now 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.679 we've been in a career for a long time and 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.199 we're still thriving and we're still bringing new things to 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:48.080 the table. But we're very different people. And when I 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.960 think about my son, sometime in the future, anytime in 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:52.919 the future. He can go back. He can hear what 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.560 I cared most about in twenty fourteen. He can learn 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:01.320 about how I thought about things in twenty seventeen. He 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:05.199 can hear the dogs on Mike in the background that 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.919 are probably long past, you know, He'll hear like Penny 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:09.919 and Meadow. He could hear that if he wanted to, 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:13.679 you know, well after I'm gone. He can hear me 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.320 having a conversation with a couple of my best friends. 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.360 Thousands of times we watched. 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.600 Like actors, for example, grow up on long running television series, 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:24.399 you know, like the Sopranos. You know, you got like 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:26.399 AJ starts off as a little kid, and by the 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:28.080 end of it, he's like, you know, in his twenties, 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:30.800 and it's similar to that. But it's also not because 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:33.600 it's real. You know, where we are, who we are. 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:36.320 We're not playing characters. I mean, you can't help but 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:39.199 bring a tiny amount of the tiniest amount of affectation 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:41.439 when you're doing this for a living, you know, But 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:44.640 I don't think we do very much. So we really 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:46.720 are to your point, Matt, you know, kind of growing 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:49.600 up on Mike, and it really is the real version 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:51.200 of us that you're experiencing. 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.880 There is something beautiful about it, and nobody really knows 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:56.960 how far this is going to go. Keep in mind 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:01.760 that although the big corporations got involved with casting very 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:05.040 early on, the industry is still so young that there 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:07.240 aren't a lot of people who've retired from it, which 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:09.840 I think is amazing. You know, the luminaries, the big 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:12.520 names are still very much there. 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:15.359 And Alex, the question for you is which ones end 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:18.920 up getting committed to wax cylinders and shot into space. 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:22.320 You know, Like the show is called ephemeral. You know, 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:27.800 it's like it is. It exists purely digitally, and so 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:30.560 it's not an object you can pick up until somebody 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:34.440 commits it to that for you know, whatever future time, 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:37.399 whether it be an apocalyptic event when you know, the 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:41.399 infrastructure goes away, for someone to pick it up and 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:43.919 play it on an old Victrola that they crank. 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:46.719 You know, dude, you need to do that, Alex. This 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:50.399 you need to print all of your ephemeral episodes onto 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.280 vinyl and then you could sell like that collection. That 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:57.080 would like so that would be so freaking cool. It's 0:23:57.760 --> 0:23:59.320 that would be a dream come true. 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:02.800 But that's like us thinking as like archivists, you know, 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:07.400 and thinking of the future, whereas advertisers and like executives. 0:24:07.800 --> 0:24:10.679 It is a disposable medium, and as much as it 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:14.960 can be recommodified and re monetizes the word that's used, 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:17.280 that's the only value it has to them. They're not 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:19.600 thinking of it in terms of some sort of big picture, 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:23.440 you know, storytelling device. If they are, it's just as 0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:25.320 a selling point to advertise it. 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:26.960 Make me sad, dude, geez. 0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:30.320 I also do love those very early stuff. They don't 0:24:30.320 --> 0:24:33.000 want to know babyface Ben and Matt with the hair 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:33.520 of it is. 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:38.560 Matt with the hair before I lost it all right. 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:41.000 So many hearts broken on those cheekbones. 0:24:41.040 --> 0:24:42.000 I'm telling you, I. 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:45.000 Used to see it right against them. It's a sharp object. 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:48.879 You guys have made obviously a lot of episodes of this. 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:51.240 You've also worked on a lot of other shows, a 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:55.000 lot of other podcasts and other kinds of projects. I'm curious, 0:24:55.320 --> 0:24:59.159 what do you think gives any kind of media or 0:24:59.240 --> 0:25:02.640 creative project staying power, like something that makes it stick 0:25:02.680 --> 0:25:06.679 around in the culture, And what in your experience you 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:11.040 think contributes to the longevity of podcasts like yours. 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:15.280 Boy Alex said is a great question, and I think 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:18.399 that anyone who says they have that answer is lying 0:25:19.080 --> 0:25:23.280 or owns a marketing firm, right, because if the formula 0:25:23.320 --> 0:25:26.359 were out there, it's like saying, go make a viral video. 0:25:26.440 --> 0:25:29.600 You can't do that. I think it's a show like 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:32.480 stuff you should know has. I think there are some 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:35.560 things that can lend to lasting power, and one is 0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:38.840 sort of what we call in the industry evergreen content. 0:25:39.400 --> 0:25:41.800 In other words, it's not super of the moment and newsy, 0:25:42.400 --> 0:25:44.840 and in one hundred years somebody might want to learn 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:48.840 about something that we've talked about, so hopefully we've got 0:25:48.840 --> 0:25:49.639 some staying power. 0:25:50.359 --> 0:25:53.439 I mean, the difference is putting Chuck and I together. 0:25:53.600 --> 0:25:56.560 That's what we've always been told. And at first, I 0:25:56.600 --> 0:26:00.480 remember when we first started kind of getting popular, we 0:26:00.480 --> 0:26:02.760 were trying to figure out what that was, you know. 0:26:02.840 --> 0:26:07.760 I mean, I think it's a pretty normal desire to 0:26:08.200 --> 0:26:11.679 try to at least capture understand like what it is 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:15.720 that's making things successful. But we figured out we can't 0:26:15.720 --> 0:26:19.199 see it, like we don't. We don't. We feel like, 0:26:19.480 --> 0:26:22.679 you know, connected to one another, but we don't see 0:26:22.680 --> 0:26:25.320 that chemistry that other people who are listening to us, 0:26:25.920 --> 0:26:28.680 you know, get to hear or get to witness, and 0:26:28.720 --> 0:26:30.800 we've just finally just taken it on faith that it 0:26:30.880 --> 0:26:33.280 exists and it's fine and we don't need to understand it. 0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:35.639 As long as everybody else is, you know, kind of 0:26:35.680 --> 0:26:37.439 vibing on it. That's that's what counts. 0:26:37.960 --> 0:26:40.719 I totally agree with Josh, and I think I even 0:26:41.400 --> 0:26:44.760 had less of an interest in examining that years ago 0:26:44.880 --> 0:26:48.720 than he did, because I'm one of those sort of 0:26:48.880 --> 0:26:51.000 people who's just like, I don't know what that is, 0:26:51.080 --> 0:26:53.240 but it's working, so I don't want to examine it 0:26:53.280 --> 0:26:53.800 too closely. 0:26:54.119 --> 0:26:56.560 Well, I remember the reason I was I wanted to 0:26:56.640 --> 0:26:59.639 so badly is because I was so terrified about that 0:27:00.560 --> 0:27:04.080 sophomore season curse. You know, I'm saying, like, when a 0:27:04.160 --> 0:27:06.040 new TV show comes out and it's a big hit 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:09.879 in its first season, it becomes really self aware, and 0:27:10.400 --> 0:27:12.719 very often the second season isn't nearly as good as 0:27:12.760 --> 0:27:14.560 the first. So I was really scared we were going 0:27:14.640 --> 0:27:16.879 to do that. So I think that's why I wanted 0:27:16.920 --> 0:27:20.240 to understand it. But at the same time, I think 0:27:20.720 --> 0:27:23.320 giving up on trying to understand it helped us get 0:27:23.359 --> 0:27:25.400 around that second season thing. 0:27:26.440 --> 0:27:28.560 I guess I would make a distinction between a podcast 0:27:28.600 --> 0:27:32.040 having longevity in the sense that the same show is 0:27:32.080 --> 0:27:35.840 continually putting out new episodes for many years, versus the 0:27:35.920 --> 0:27:40.160 same finished product, like a piece of audio, having staying 0:27:40.200 --> 0:27:42.439 power in the sense that people keep listening to it 0:27:42.480 --> 0:27:46.000 over the years. I mean, there are some shows that 0:27:47.400 --> 0:27:49.040 you know go on for a long time. I mean 0:27:49.080 --> 0:27:51.000 that you know, The Simpsons has been going for however 0:27:51.040 --> 0:27:54.720 many seasons. But I would say that some episodes of 0:27:54.720 --> 0:27:57.560 The Simpsons really have longevity and others do not. I mean, 0:27:57.640 --> 0:28:01.080 everybody's going to remember episodes from season or whatever for 0:28:01.680 --> 0:28:04.119 decades and decades, and you know who's going to remember 0:28:04.280 --> 0:28:07.639 that episode from season seventeen. I think it tends to 0:28:07.640 --> 0:28:11.120 be something that has a has a unique or distinctive quality, 0:28:11.320 --> 0:28:14.600 something that separates it from everything else that was being 0:28:14.600 --> 0:28:15.840 produced in the same genre. 0:28:15.880 --> 0:28:18.280 At the same time, there's sort of a number of 0:28:18.280 --> 0:28:20.080 different questions wrapped up in it, right, like why do 0:28:20.160 --> 0:28:22.240 people listen to the show? Why do people keep listening 0:28:22.280 --> 0:28:24.280 to the show, or why did new people start listening 0:28:24.280 --> 0:28:26.359 to the show? And I guess all of those are 0:28:27.040 --> 0:28:30.160 all kind of unanswerable in their own ways, right, I mean, 0:28:30.200 --> 0:28:32.000 you just can just kind of guess at these things 0:28:32.040 --> 0:28:35.159 and hope that the sort of standards you stick to 0:28:35.240 --> 0:28:39.400 are the reasons that all of these people have listened, 0:28:40.000 --> 0:28:43.880 are listening, or will listen in the future. And I 0:28:43.880 --> 0:28:45.680 guess on that count, like we just try and be 0:28:46.720 --> 0:28:54.120 honest ourselves, approachable and engaging in curiosity, like honestly engaging 0:28:54.120 --> 0:28:57.360 in our own curiosity, and sort of hoping and trusting 0:28:57.880 --> 0:29:02.840 that that level of honest cureiosity will be embraced by 0:29:02.840 --> 0:29:03.840 the people who listen. 0:29:03.640 --> 0:29:04.120 To the show. 0:29:04.680 --> 0:29:07.120 I mean, the bottom line is that, like for something 0:29:07.160 --> 0:29:11.280 to have a cultural moment, it has to grab the 0:29:11.320 --> 0:29:14.400 attention of like X number of people to begin with. 0:29:15.440 --> 0:29:17.000 But there are lots of things that do that and 0:29:17.040 --> 0:29:18.840 then they kind of vanish, Like so much of our 0:29:18.880 --> 0:29:21.120 show is that, like did you know that this person 0:29:21.240 --> 0:29:23.880 was super super famous in nineteen twenty and you've never 0:29:23.880 --> 0:29:26.120 heard of them? Like that happens all the time. But 0:29:26.200 --> 0:29:28.640 in terms of staying power, I think there has to 0:29:28.680 --> 0:29:34.360 be some element to it that is either controversial, which 0:29:34.360 --> 0:29:39.080 would be my less favored version, or just so rock 0:29:39.240 --> 0:29:44.120 solid in terms of consistency that people know that they 0:29:44.120 --> 0:29:47.120 can continue to access that thing and that it's not 0:29:47.240 --> 0:29:49.959 going to be suddenly a completely different thing that they 0:29:50.000 --> 0:29:52.200 have to learn and understand. Like there's a comfort level 0:29:52.200 --> 0:29:54.880 to it. It's got to be one of those too, right, 0:29:55.200 --> 0:29:57.640 Like I don't want to ever be part of one 0:29:57.640 --> 0:29:59.719 of the controversial ones. But those are the things that 0:29:59.760 --> 0:30:02.600 like sticking people's minds forever. And you see it happen 0:30:02.640 --> 0:30:04.640 in the Twitter cycle all the time, where someone will 0:30:04.640 --> 0:30:07.440 do something stupid and terrible and then it'll kind of 0:30:07.440 --> 0:30:09.760 fade away, and then like six months later, someone will go, 0:30:09.800 --> 0:30:13.160 do you remember when so and so did this stupid thing? 0:30:13.200 --> 0:30:18.120 We should rehash that versus the quieter version is the 0:30:18.160 --> 0:30:21.040 consistent version, which is fine with me. I think some 0:30:21.120 --> 0:30:24.520 of it is really just luck, and some of it 0:30:24.600 --> 0:30:28.080 is having the people who are working on something really 0:30:28.120 --> 0:30:32.600 care about what they're doing. I think it's hard to 0:30:32.960 --> 0:30:36.840 make something that really captures people's attention if you do 0:30:36.960 --> 0:30:41.200 not care at all about what's going on. But at 0:30:41.200 --> 0:30:42.960 the same time, I know a lot of people who 0:30:42.960 --> 0:30:47.040 have really poured their hearts into projects and those projects 0:30:47.040 --> 0:30:50.040 have never taken off in a big way. Right, So 0:30:50.840 --> 0:30:53.240 there's an element to it that I don't know that 0:30:53.280 --> 0:30:57.440 anybody necessarily has control over it all, and to return 0:30:57.480 --> 0:31:00.000 to Holly's example, there are so many people that are 0:31:00.160 --> 0:31:04.800 just doing thoughtless, obtuse things on social media all the time, 0:31:04.880 --> 0:31:07.560 and only like a tiny ninety fraction of them becomes 0:31:07.600 --> 0:31:10.200 the main character of social media for the day, you know, 0:31:11.000 --> 0:31:14.120 So some of it I think is just random chance. 0:31:14.680 --> 0:31:18.640 The other thing though, that I think separates the podcasts 0:31:18.680 --> 0:31:22.400 that have longevity and have legs versus that don't, aside 0:31:22.400 --> 0:31:25.640 from being able to just stick to making them, is 0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:30.480 that I always say that like, your ear can perceive 0:31:31.280 --> 0:31:35.720 disingenuous sound faster than your brain can process it, and 0:31:35.800 --> 0:31:39.080 so if it's something that's like a nonfiction like what 0:31:39.080 --> 0:31:45.000 We Do or whatever, you have to be more real 0:31:45.240 --> 0:31:49.840 than polished in my opinion, you know what I mean, 0:31:49.880 --> 0:31:53.320 Like there are shows where people sound completely perfect, and 0:31:53.360 --> 0:31:55.160 it's like your brain buzzes right out of it, like 0:31:55.200 --> 0:31:59.400 it just doesn't stay engaged. And even I think in 0:31:59.560 --> 0:32:02.280 cases where you're making something that is more produced or 0:32:02.320 --> 0:32:06.360 more fiction oriented, it's the same thing they teach actors 0:32:06.360 --> 0:32:08.280 all the time, like, yes, you're playing a part, but 0:32:08.440 --> 0:32:10.720 you have to be in that moment for it to 0:32:10.800 --> 0:32:13.080 really play. And it's kind of the same thing like 0:32:13.120 --> 0:32:15.880 there just has to be a level of engagement, a 0:32:16.040 --> 0:32:20.360 genuine intellectual engagement with the material that carries forward to 0:32:21.120 --> 0:32:24.880 the listener because remember they're listening in We always talk 0:32:24.920 --> 0:32:28.680 about intimacy in the podcasting industry, Like, it's not like 0:32:28.760 --> 0:32:30.520 when you go to a movie theater and you watch 0:32:30.520 --> 0:32:32.120 something on a screen, or even when you're in your 0:32:32.120 --> 0:32:34.840 house and it's on TV where you're at a remove, 0:32:34.960 --> 0:32:38.040 it's usually in your bubble of your car or right 0:32:38.120 --> 0:32:41.760 on your person. So there's such a depth of intimacy 0:32:41.840 --> 0:32:45.160 to it that I think that's why that divide of 0:32:45.200 --> 0:32:50.200 like genuine versus not feels so big in podcasts. 0:32:50.560 --> 0:32:50.920 Yeah. 0:32:50.960 --> 0:32:54.520 One of the many jobs that I had before becoming 0:32:54.520 --> 0:32:56.560 a podcaster, which is still a little weird to me 0:32:56.760 --> 0:33:00.360 ten years in, twelve years in whatever, I was a 0:33:00.400 --> 0:33:02.800 massage therapist. And one of the things that we learned 0:33:02.800 --> 0:33:05.640 in massage school is that when you are doing a massage, 0:33:05.680 --> 0:33:08.080 you need to be really present in the room with 0:33:08.160 --> 0:33:15.040 the person and like part of what is healing and 0:33:15.120 --> 0:33:19.360 restorative to for lack of a better, less new agy 0:33:19.360 --> 0:33:23.520 word about getting a massage that somebody is in the 0:33:23.600 --> 0:33:26.040 room with you, being present with you and paying attention 0:33:26.080 --> 0:33:28.440 to you the whole time, and when you're getting a massage, 0:33:29.680 --> 0:33:33.120 if the person is just mentally checked out and on autopilot, 0:33:33.200 --> 0:33:36.280 you can tell. And I think the same is true 0:33:36.280 --> 0:33:40.840 about listening to things that people have created. Somebody is 0:33:40.880 --> 0:33:44.600 tossing something off without really engaging with it. As Holly 0:33:44.720 --> 0:33:49.720 just said, it's audibly evident, even if the person thinks 0:33:49.760 --> 0:33:52.480 they're doing an okay job of phoning it in on 0:33:52.640 --> 0:33:55.840 their on their show. Yeah, it's like your brain without 0:33:55.920 --> 0:33:58.720 you having any conscious part of it, your brain goes well, 0:33:58.760 --> 0:34:01.120 if they're not into it, why should like there's just 0:34:01.200 --> 0:34:05.600 an exit that happens without you even really participating in 0:34:05.640 --> 0:34:06.160 the decision. 0:34:06.360 --> 0:34:11.719 M Well, my knee jerk. Very business answer is relevance. 0:34:12.640 --> 0:34:16.920 But essentially, the staying power to me is really about 0:34:17.280 --> 0:34:22.279 storytelling and connection. That idea of I'm connecting to a 0:34:22.440 --> 0:34:26.840 story or an experience or something with other people, getting 0:34:26.880 --> 0:34:30.080 lost in it and enjoying it and thinking about all 0:34:30.080 --> 0:34:32.719 of the people who For me, I think about the 0:34:32.760 --> 0:34:35.160 people who made it and the time it was made. 0:34:35.880 --> 0:34:36.800 Yeah, I'd agree. 0:34:37.000 --> 0:34:40.560 I'd say that the staying power of anything depends on 0:34:40.680 --> 0:34:43.520 how easy it makes it for you to write to 0:34:43.560 --> 0:34:46.120 connect to a story and to connect to the people 0:34:46.200 --> 0:34:50.440 who are creating it, to just really, you know, shoehorn 0:34:50.520 --> 0:34:53.600 yourself into the mind of someone who you find brilliant 0:34:53.680 --> 0:34:55.920 or delightful or terrible or you know whatever, all the 0:34:55.960 --> 0:34:59.640 whyever else you're consuming, whatever type of content. I've hate 0:34:59.680 --> 0:35:02.080 watched enough things that I don't mind. If that's why 0:35:02.080 --> 0:35:05.000 you're listening, that's fine. And so I think that when 0:35:05.080 --> 0:35:07.960 a medium starts failing to do that, it's when you've 0:35:08.000 --> 0:35:11.520 made it too difficult to access, that you've put too 0:35:11.560 --> 0:35:17.120 many loopholes, too many ads, too many you know, pop 0:35:17.200 --> 0:35:19.200 ups or whatever it is, that it is too. 0:35:19.040 --> 0:35:22.040 Many ads, never no such thing. 0:35:24.360 --> 0:35:27.239 Because I started in podcasting when it was like first 0:35:27.440 --> 0:35:29.480 getting off the ground. A lot of people will ask 0:35:29.560 --> 0:35:31.359 me like, well, how do you get into podcasting? And 0:35:31.800 --> 0:35:34.680 my joking answer, which I don't always say out loud, 0:35:34.760 --> 0:35:38.080 is get a time machine because we were on the 0:35:38.080 --> 0:35:42.440 ground in the beginning, and so we built those those audiences. 0:35:42.560 --> 0:35:45.879 I will say, though, if somebody loves the thing that 0:35:45.920 --> 0:35:50.480 you did, I think it can still be lasting if 0:35:50.520 --> 0:35:53.399 it has a passion of fan base, and they will 0:35:53.440 --> 0:35:57.279 work to preserve it and share it. And that is 0:35:57.280 --> 0:35:59.040 something that I love because I do that kind of 0:35:59.080 --> 0:36:01.120 stuff too. I don't want to lose this. I'm a 0:36:01.239 --> 0:36:05.160 very like physical I have to have some copy of 0:36:05.200 --> 0:36:08.040 this somewhere in case it goes away one day. And 0:36:08.080 --> 0:36:09.480 I think there are people out there like that. So 0:36:09.520 --> 0:36:13.839 I do agree it's mostly like timing and resources and 0:36:13.880 --> 0:36:16.120 all kinds of things like that. But I also think 0:36:17.120 --> 0:36:22.839 that smaller things that have these sort of niche, very 0:36:22.840 --> 0:36:26.719 passionate audiences can last too because of that. 0:36:27.120 --> 0:36:29.640 Yeah, you know the same way that you can have 0:36:30.000 --> 0:36:33.520 a sleeper hit that doesn't do that, doesn't like do 0:36:33.640 --> 0:36:35.920 the numbers or make the money or whatever it is 0:36:35.960 --> 0:36:40.520 that you're ostensibly going for at first, can stick around 0:36:40.560 --> 0:36:43.360 in a way that you know, maybe maybe it's a 0:36:43.440 --> 0:36:48.160 year down the road and someone goes, oh, I'm cooking plantains, 0:36:48.360 --> 0:36:51.879 and didn't Anny and Lauren talk about plantains, And oh, 0:36:51.920 --> 0:36:54.759 someone just mentioned this dish to me. I wonder if 0:36:54.760 --> 0:36:57.719 they've ever heard that episode about it, like let's And 0:36:59.200 --> 0:37:02.440 it's not always in linear way that I think, especially 0:37:02.520 --> 0:37:05.799 in like a corporate version of this job that is 0:37:06.000 --> 0:37:09.319 pleasing to all of us involved, like we want it 0:37:09.360 --> 0:37:11.360 to do those numbers, we want it to do that 0:37:11.600 --> 0:37:14.279 successful thing. But what a success is in terms of 0:37:14.320 --> 0:37:19.480 making a creative piece of work is a large, large category. 0:37:20.239 --> 0:37:23.959 Art does not exist without an audience, right, So podcasting 0:37:24.120 --> 0:37:27.000 is just the same, despite the commodification that happens with 0:37:27.080 --> 0:37:30.879 any form of art, education or entertainment. So I would say, 0:37:30.880 --> 0:37:33.640 from an audience perspective, you're looking for three things. You're 0:37:33.680 --> 0:37:37.560 looking for identification, Do I see myself in this? 0:37:37.760 --> 0:37:37.920 Right? 0:37:37.960 --> 0:37:41.840 You're looking for participation, Am I an active part of 0:37:41.880 --> 0:37:45.680 this rather than just a passive observer? And from there 0:37:45.760 --> 0:37:50.720 you get to this idea of ownership. Right, don't talk 0:37:50.920 --> 0:37:55.600 bad about Ira Glass, that's my guy. So I would just, 0:37:55.880 --> 0:38:00.600 at least from the audience perspective, I would say identification, participation, ownership. 0:38:01.440 --> 0:38:05.759 I think it's changed a little bit. I think it's 0:38:05.840 --> 0:38:11.200 now about shareable snippets, literally, that thing that gets posted 0:38:11.280 --> 0:38:14.080 on TikTok or an Instagram story or whatever. I think 0:38:14.120 --> 0:38:16.359 that's how things catch on now. 0:38:16.440 --> 0:38:19.200 But does it have staying power. Catching on and having 0:38:19.239 --> 0:38:21.680 staying power kind of two different things, don't you think? 0:38:21.880 --> 0:38:25.840 You're absolutely right? But I think that's how big audiences 0:38:25.920 --> 0:38:28.359 grow to create a show that has staying power, Right, 0:38:28.840 --> 0:38:30.640 I think that's one of the only ways that you 0:38:30.680 --> 0:38:33.680 get in. And it does worry me because it becomes 0:38:34.440 --> 0:38:38.320 a strategy for content creators or people who are actually 0:38:38.360 --> 0:38:41.920 making things, wanting to have something that lasts for a 0:38:41.960 --> 0:38:46.200 long time or it gets big. You're like you're grasping 0:38:46.239 --> 0:38:48.680 at those little things on purpose, or you're trying to 0:38:48.680 --> 0:38:50.799 crafter content to those things. 0:38:51.520 --> 0:38:54.440 Yeah, I mean, you know again to the name of 0:38:54.719 --> 0:38:57.000 your show, you know, I mean the content has become 0:38:57.040 --> 0:39:03.560 increasingly ephemeral, but also increasingly disposable. I mean, I guess 0:39:03.560 --> 0:39:05.920 I don't know if i'meral and disposable are kind of similar, 0:39:05.960 --> 0:39:08.200 but not really. It just means like fleeting. You know, 0:39:08.239 --> 0:39:10.120 it's not something that you can put your arms around 0:39:10.200 --> 0:39:13.279 all the time, but at least in the past. You know, 0:39:13.320 --> 0:39:17.240 there's this nostalgia tied to like old mediums and these cycles. 0:39:17.320 --> 0:39:20.040 The technology goes in and now, like vinyl is huge again, 0:39:20.360 --> 0:39:23.240 I think as a backlash largely against things like streaming 0:39:23.280 --> 0:39:25.759 that feel too ephemeral, and it's like, I don't feel 0:39:25.760 --> 0:39:29.279 participatory in this because it's too hard to wrap my 0:39:29.400 --> 0:39:32.520 arms around. And if I own a Vinyl record, then 0:39:32.560 --> 0:39:35.200 I'm participating in it, and I'm having ownership of it, 0:39:35.360 --> 0:39:37.960 whereas no matter how many streaming services I subscribe to, 0:39:38.040 --> 0:39:40.839 I don't ever feel like I own that music. So 0:39:40.880 --> 0:39:43.000 it's and it's just much more of a playlist kind 0:39:43.000 --> 0:39:45.000 of culture, you know. So when I buy a record, 0:39:45.000 --> 0:39:47.520 it's like I'm participating in that art, and I feel 0:39:47.520 --> 0:39:49.360 like I'm you know, I'm filing it away in my 0:39:49.400 --> 0:39:53.080 own personal library of congress. I think that's a sad thing. 0:39:53.160 --> 0:39:55.120 But also there's always going to be backlash. I saw 0:39:55.120 --> 0:39:57.160 this article in the New York Times the other day 0:39:57.160 --> 0:39:59.440 about how I think it's in New York public school. 0:39:59.440 --> 0:40:00.880 There these kids the start of this thing called the 0:40:00.920 --> 0:40:06.360 Luddite Club, where they're like completely eschewing social media and 0:40:06.560 --> 0:40:09.680 and uh and smartphones, you know, so that they can 0:40:09.800 --> 0:40:12.880 walk around and look at like a street art and 0:40:13.000 --> 0:40:15.880 listen to the sound of you know, the birds and 0:40:15.920 --> 0:40:20.160 street musicians. Has experience the world kind of untethered. So 0:40:20.200 --> 0:40:22.000 there's always going to be the backlash. And I think 0:40:22.040 --> 0:40:24.520 gen Z or whatever the other one is on the 0:40:24.560 --> 0:40:26.799 cusp there, they're the ones that are going to kind 0:40:26.800 --> 0:40:28.560 of pioneer that. And as much as they've grown up 0:40:28.560 --> 0:40:30.359 on the internet, I think they know how to use 0:40:30.400 --> 0:40:32.040 it in a much healthier way than we give them 0:40:32.040 --> 0:40:32.440 credit for. 0:40:33.400 --> 0:40:37.719 I agree with the observation about the cyclical nature of things, right, 0:40:38.480 --> 0:40:42.280 I would also I would also posit that the danger 0:40:42.800 --> 0:40:47.000 for a medium like this is one of the most 0:40:47.040 --> 0:40:51.200 beautiful things about it. It's democratized, right, It's relatively simple 0:40:51.400 --> 0:40:55.400 in terms of time and in terms of materials to 0:40:55.480 --> 0:40:58.319 create a show and to put that show on. But 0:40:58.640 --> 0:41:04.040 that same beautiful democratization lends itself to what may be 0:41:04.239 --> 0:41:08.640 one of the great achilles heels of podcasting overall, which 0:41:08.719 --> 0:41:13.400 is that people like to talk. Listening is a skill 0:41:13.520 --> 0:41:18.440 people have to learn talking pushing it out. Uh, that's 0:41:18.440 --> 0:41:21.440 something people naturally like to do. There is a tremendous, 0:41:22.040 --> 0:41:26.680 uh insidious sort of validation in this, right Uh. And 0:41:26.719 --> 0:41:29.839 so I think if you look at a lot of 0:41:29.880 --> 0:41:34.480 the shows in this medium that that do well, that speak, 0:41:34.560 --> 0:41:38.160 that have that stame power to which we're alluding, then 0:41:38.200 --> 0:41:42.600 you'll find, as counterintuitive as it may sound, the creators 0:41:42.600 --> 0:41:46.240 of those shows spend a lot of time listening. 0:41:46.640 --> 0:41:46.799 Right. 0:41:47.000 --> 0:41:53.239 The the there's always you know, gloom and doomy forecasting 0:41:53.680 --> 0:41:59.360 stuff about uh about a saturation point, right, what what 0:42:00.160 --> 0:42:04.240 will there ever be a threshold at which every person 0:42:04.280 --> 0:42:08.040 you know has their own podcast and they're not listening 0:42:08.320 --> 0:42:09.600 to other shows. 0:42:09.360 --> 0:42:12.839 Right because they need to they need to make their podcast, right. 0:42:14.120 --> 0:42:18.680 I hope that does not become the case. But again, 0:42:18.840 --> 0:42:22.360 I think that's the primary I don't even want to 0:42:22.360 --> 0:42:26.239 say danger anymore. The primary obstacle to longevity for some 0:42:26.320 --> 0:42:31.120 of these things is to the point about untethering. Untethering 0:42:31.239 --> 0:42:35.080 enough from the addiction to speak, to learn and exercise 0:42:35.560 --> 0:42:37.080 the amazing art of listening. 0:42:38.200 --> 0:42:41.000 What do you imagine for the long term future of podcasting, Like, 0:42:41.040 --> 0:42:44.359 do you think in a hundred years people could be 0:42:44.880 --> 0:42:48.320 listening to podcasts that are made now or archiving them? 0:42:48.440 --> 0:42:48.560 Oh? 0:42:48.640 --> 0:42:49.360 Well, I hope not. 0:42:49.640 --> 0:42:51.279 I hope so, boy, I hope so. 0:42:51.960 --> 0:42:55.920 To be honest, I mean i'd be I'd somewhat doubt 0:42:55.920 --> 0:43:00.839 it because people actually consume very little media from one 0:43:00.880 --> 0:43:03.239 hundred years ago, and most of the things they do 0:43:03.360 --> 0:43:07.759 consume are kind of standalone works of art, like a 0:43:07.800 --> 0:43:12.759 single movie or a single novel. People rarely go back 0:43:12.800 --> 0:43:16.440 and like try to, you know, listen to the radio 0:43:16.600 --> 0:43:18.839 serials from one hundred years ago. I mean a few 0:43:18.840 --> 0:43:19.600 people might. 0:43:19.920 --> 0:43:22.120 Well, Alex does, right, this is your thing? 0:43:22.360 --> 0:43:27.120 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so maybe some people with very Nietzsche 0:43:28.320 --> 0:43:32.839 obscure historical interests might still enjoy our podcast the same 0:43:32.880 --> 0:43:34.640 way that some people today might want to go back 0:43:34.640 --> 0:43:37.240 and listen to some kind of obscure radio serials. 0:43:37.680 --> 0:43:40.920 Yeah, and I think that's fine. Like I'm mostly like, 0:43:40.960 --> 0:43:43.239 I just I hope people are listening a year from now, 0:43:43.400 --> 0:43:45.640 two years from now. I don't really think a century out. 0:43:45.680 --> 0:43:49.040 And I don't know, I guess I've kind of I 0:43:49.120 --> 0:43:52.440 kind of I'm cool with the idea that like one 0:43:52.480 --> 0:43:55.759 hundred years from now that that you know, nobody's gonna 0:43:55.760 --> 0:43:58.919 remember me. Maybe you know, people there will be some 0:43:58.920 --> 0:44:03.000 connection looking back on you know, like family connections to 0:44:03.040 --> 0:44:05.120 me or something. But you know, that's just that's just 0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:06.920 how it goes. That's really, I guess how it's supposed 0:44:06.960 --> 0:44:07.160 to go. 0:44:08.000 --> 0:44:10.040 I mean, the other thing that I think about is 0:44:10.320 --> 0:44:14.279 if the if they'll even be available right like, like 0:44:15.080 --> 0:44:17.880 you know, there's some serious work that goes into like 0:44:18.120 --> 0:44:21.839 archiving stuff that's one hundred years old now, archiving and 0:44:22.000 --> 0:44:26.280 also like making available digitally usually or in physical archives 0:44:26.280 --> 0:44:30.040 for people media that's that old. And like with podcasting, 0:44:30.080 --> 0:44:32.520 we kind of think, like with our model it's like, oh, 0:44:32.560 --> 0:44:37.640 it's everywhere and it's always available and it's free. But 0:44:37.760 --> 0:44:41.160 I wonder, you know, I wonder how true that is 0:44:41.480 --> 0:44:43.800 long term for a variety of reasons. 0:44:44.080 --> 0:44:47.239 Yeah, because who owns it, who's paying for it to 0:44:47.239 --> 0:44:51.400 be stored somewhere? You know, generally digitally speaking, But I 0:44:51.400 --> 0:44:53.640 guess you could look at it from a physical standpoint 0:44:53.640 --> 0:44:56.040 as well. Yeah, like, where where is this stuff one 0:44:56.120 --> 0:44:58.319 hundred years from now? That it's anywhere, so. 0:44:58.239 --> 0:45:01.560 It's still going to have ear splitting ads that enrage 0:45:01.600 --> 0:45:04.239 people baked in one hundred years from now, I hope. 0:45:04.239 --> 0:45:07.000 So I mean that really that's probably going to be 0:45:07.040 --> 0:45:08.919 the main reason they're going back and listening to the show. 0:45:09.040 --> 0:45:11.560 Like you know, nowadays, we look back at VHS tapes 0:45:12.080 --> 0:45:15.680 and we're like, oh, man, whoever recorded this off TV? 0:45:16.280 --> 0:45:19.000 They were thoughtful enough to cut out all of the advertisements. 0:45:19.040 --> 0:45:21.239 And that's the only reason I wanted to find it, 0:45:21.280 --> 0:45:22.719 you know, because you can get a better cut of 0:45:22.719 --> 0:45:25.560 whatever movie they were taping. But it's those ads you want, 0:45:25.680 --> 0:45:28.080 that's the you want the authentic media experience. 0:45:28.280 --> 0:45:31.040 I want to watch that vintage easy bakeup and commercial. 0:45:31.400 --> 0:45:33.920 Yeah, but there's also there's also just no accounting for 0:45:34.400 --> 0:45:36.759 taste in the future. Like how many, like how many 0:45:36.760 --> 0:45:38.400 of the films we've talked about in Weird House, some 0:45:38.440 --> 0:45:42.600 of the lower budget productions. I mean, sometimes you had 0:45:42.640 --> 0:45:45.560 someone with a very high estimation of their talents and 0:45:46.280 --> 0:45:48.120 worth involved in it, But for the most part, did 0:45:48.160 --> 0:45:51.520 any of them think that, well, you know, decades from now, 0:45:52.000 --> 0:45:54.279 people are going to be remastering this and putting it 0:45:54.320 --> 0:45:56.960 out on a pricey blu ray, and there's going to 0:45:56.960 --> 0:45:58.840 be a section of the population is just going to 0:45:58.920 --> 0:46:02.480 gobble it up and want more so, and then there 0:46:02.480 --> 0:46:05.040 are other things that, you know, they're obviously down the 0:46:05.080 --> 0:46:06.560 other end of the spectrum. There are plenty of big 0:46:06.600 --> 0:46:11.120 budget movies that came out with aspirations to just be 0:46:11.360 --> 0:46:15.200 like real cultural touchstones, and just nobody cares about them today. 0:46:16.000 --> 0:46:18.359 That's a great point. I mean Edwood might have thought 0:46:18.360 --> 0:46:20.480 he was changing the world, but the guy who made 0:46:20.560 --> 0:46:23.600 Robot Monster probably did not yet. 0:46:23.440 --> 0:46:25.560 And yet he did right right, Yeah, Yeah, that one 0:46:25.560 --> 0:46:26.479 seems a safe bet. 0:46:27.200 --> 0:46:30.080 I feel like the organization of the content is also 0:46:30.160 --> 0:46:34.719 going to be a problem for future listeners because a 0:46:34.760 --> 0:46:37.680 big part of the experience of listening to a podcast 0:46:37.719 --> 0:46:41.640 like ours I think at least is not just hearing 0:46:41.719 --> 0:46:45.279 a discrete individual episode, but having heard the episodes from 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:48.480 the previous months, and like that episode appearing in a context. 0:46:48.719 --> 0:46:51.680 We'll often refer back to things we've talked about previously, 0:46:52.560 --> 0:46:54.680 or of course, we have listener mail episodes which are 0:46:54.719 --> 0:46:59.600 almost entirely retrospective about things we've already covered. So each 0:46:59.680 --> 0:47:03.680 like audio file is kind of enmeshed in an ongoing 0:47:03.719 --> 0:47:08.600 experience of relationship with the listeners and coming back to 0:47:08.800 --> 0:47:12.360 and thinking about different topics in different ways. So I 0:47:12.400 --> 0:47:14.239 feel like that would also be lost if you just 0:47:14.320 --> 0:47:16.960 like pull out a random episode from you know, one 0:47:17.000 --> 0:47:18.160 hundred years in the future. 0:47:18.840 --> 0:47:22.080 Yeah, I mean sorting out archival materials can be very 0:47:22.280 --> 0:47:24.560 very tricky and stuff to bliw your mind. Would be 0:47:24.600 --> 0:47:27.799 a good candidate for a really hard I mean what 0:47:27.840 --> 0:47:29.800 you were saying earlier about how there's so many different 0:47:29.800 --> 0:47:32.040 things and a different name in the beginning, the format 0:47:32.040 --> 0:47:34.480 has changed all these different times. It would be a 0:47:34.520 --> 0:47:36.360 real like if you just got it dumped like in 0:47:36.400 --> 0:47:42.560 a box with no dates, no context, no index. 0:47:43.080 --> 0:47:45.480 Well, now you've got me thinking, we need to start 0:47:45.719 --> 0:47:48.480 doing time capsule episodes. We need to start producing a 0:47:48.520 --> 0:47:50.520 show that will be popular one hundred years from now. 0:47:50.920 --> 0:47:53.960 Oh that's interesting. Now, another way to look at it 0:47:54.000 --> 0:47:58.440 is that we are we're creating jobs for future archivists 0:47:58.719 --> 0:48:02.000 by establishing these problems. You know, this is this is 0:48:02.080 --> 0:48:03.120 good problems to solve. 0:48:03.440 --> 0:48:05.200 Yeah, we got to keep the AI and the future 0:48:05.239 --> 0:48:06.960 busy with tasks like this. 0:48:07.640 --> 0:48:10.840 Oh gosh, God bless the archivis AI or otherwise. 0:48:11.520 --> 0:48:15.839 Listen, there are still people tracking down wax cylinder recordings 0:48:15.920 --> 0:48:21.400 and listening to them. So like some very very hyper 0:48:21.480 --> 0:48:24.480 focused person will figure out a way to find old 0:48:24.520 --> 0:48:27.319 podcasts and listen to them and probably be like those 0:48:27.400 --> 0:48:29.680 ding Dongs didn't have a clue what they were talking 0:48:29.719 --> 0:48:33.120 about in the context of the future. Beyond that, I 0:48:33.160 --> 0:48:35.000 don't know. I do think about it all the time 0:48:35.040 --> 0:48:37.879 because we get so much discussion. I mean, you're part 0:48:37.920 --> 0:48:41.799 of it a lot within our company, where there's an 0:48:41.840 --> 0:48:44.280 awareness that we kind of came in at the beginning 0:48:44.320 --> 0:48:48.719 of a new industry and us kind of figuring out 0:48:48.760 --> 0:48:52.360 how any of us, either as individuals within the company 0:48:52.480 --> 0:48:57.440 or you know, media companies, are charting where that industry goes. 0:48:58.800 --> 0:49:02.560 That I almost feel like, even though we probably feel 0:49:02.560 --> 0:49:05.600 like we're the old, seasoned hags of this business. In 0:49:05.640 --> 0:49:09.560 many ways, it is still in its infancy right when 0:49:09.600 --> 0:49:12.919 you think about where television was, say fifteen years into 0:49:13.000 --> 0:49:19.680 it being a media versus where it is now. Obviously, 0:49:19.760 --> 0:49:22.359 like that seemed still like the infancy to us. So 0:49:22.840 --> 0:49:24.560 while we feel like we've been doing this for a 0:49:24.640 --> 0:49:26.920 very long time and we're in it and we know 0:49:27.000 --> 0:49:31.000 what it is, we don't. So it's very hard when 0:49:31.040 --> 0:49:33.200 I think about it in that context of like how 0:49:33.239 --> 0:49:38.880 we look back at other media historically, we don't know 0:49:38.960 --> 0:49:41.359 because we don't even know the world that will be right, 0:49:41.480 --> 0:49:46.600 Like will holograms stand there and say the words that 0:49:46.640 --> 0:49:51.399 someone has input into a some format where like there's 0:49:51.440 --> 0:49:53.520 a version of me that looks like a Pikachu that's 0:49:53.520 --> 0:49:57.200 still talking about like how people discovered color blindness. I 0:49:57.239 --> 0:49:59.560 don't know, but that sounds cool. That works for me. 0:50:01.000 --> 0:50:02.960 Just in our own limited time span. I mean, we 0:50:03.040 --> 0:50:06.480 still get emails from folks who are listening to the 0:50:08.040 --> 0:50:10.640 whole archive of the show who will sometimes send in 0:50:10.719 --> 0:50:15.839 questions about incredibly early episodes that at this point are 0:50:16.080 --> 0:50:19.160 more than a decade old, and it's you know, a 0:50:19.200 --> 0:50:22.080 small number of people, but a meaningful number of people. 0:50:23.040 --> 0:50:25.680 So I have to imagine that one hundred years from 0:50:25.680 --> 0:50:30.279 now still going to be a small, dedicated, meaning like 0:50:30.560 --> 0:50:36.320 but meaningful group of people plowing through old recordings of stuff. 0:50:36.400 --> 0:50:41.120 They're going to bring it back, like vinyl, because what 0:50:41.160 --> 0:50:43.439 do you mean, Well, like vinyl was not the thing 0:50:43.480 --> 0:50:46.839 for a long time, and now people are into vinyl again. 0:50:47.360 --> 0:50:49.800 Oh you think, like podcasts will go out of fashion 0:50:50.080 --> 0:50:51.960 and then they'll come back in fashion. 0:50:51.960 --> 0:50:54.600 It'll be retro. Well I don't even know if it's 0:50:54.680 --> 0:50:56.600 if out of fashion is the right word, but it 0:50:56.640 --> 0:51:03.080 won't be the most popular method of conveying that information, right, 0:51:03.239 --> 0:51:06.920 Like whether that means that things like what we do 0:51:06.960 --> 0:51:12.440 are gonna have to be married to visuals or I 0:51:12.520 --> 0:51:15.440 don't know, some other thing. I have this great vision. 0:51:15.600 --> 0:51:18.640 I don't think this is real. It's just what goes 0:51:18.680 --> 0:51:24.680 on in my freaky imagination of like sound experiences where 0:51:24.680 --> 0:51:27.719 people have like almost your like inside of a lava lamp, 0:51:27.760 --> 0:51:30.920 but the things are moving in time with the things 0:51:30.960 --> 0:51:33.480 that you're hearing. Like to me, I'm like, oh yeah, 0:51:33.480 --> 0:51:35.839 that would be a great way to experience audio, you know, 0:51:35.880 --> 0:51:38.360 even if it's just people talking about like how a 0:51:38.400 --> 0:51:42.120 car works or whatever. That sounds great to me. Something 0:51:42.280 --> 0:51:44.879 completely different than anything any of us can imagine will 0:51:44.960 --> 0:51:48.359 evolve and be the way that that these things are communicated, 0:51:48.360 --> 0:51:51.120 and then eventually someone will be like I found this 0:51:51.239 --> 0:51:55.760 old technology called an iPod, and who knows what will happen. 0:51:55.800 --> 0:52:00.719 Then somehow that made me imagine those immersive art exhibits 0:52:00.800 --> 0:52:04.239 the I love it, and like, we went to one 0:52:04.280 --> 0:52:06.719 when we were in Paris and it was honestly one 0:52:06.760 --> 0:52:09.359 of the best things of the trip. I loved it 0:52:09.400 --> 0:52:13.840 so much. But like, I'm imagining a world where people 0:52:13.880 --> 0:52:17.319 walk into a warehouse sized space with projections on the 0:52:17.360 --> 0:52:20.480 wall and it's our voices, and it's honestly a little 0:52:20.600 --> 0:52:23.560 nightmarish to me. Those poor people, I'm so sorry and 0:52:23.600 --> 0:52:24.680 advanced future people. 0:52:26.880 --> 0:52:31.520 Here in my older middle age, I've started to think 0:52:31.560 --> 0:52:36.640 a little bit about legacy and don't want to dwell 0:52:36.640 --> 0:52:40.279 on that kind of thing, but it enters my psyche occasionally, 0:52:40.520 --> 0:52:44.480 and I think, like, the best legacy I could ever 0:52:44.560 --> 0:52:49.560 ask for is that there is a school classroom in 0:52:49.600 --> 0:52:53.200 one hundred years where a teacher has dug up our 0:52:53.239 --> 0:52:56.480 show and is playing it for you know, the robot 0:52:56.520 --> 0:53:00.360 students of the future, all wearing silver jumpsuits exactly. 0:53:00.920 --> 0:53:03.879 Yeah, I think that there's probably plenty of episodes that 0:53:04.160 --> 0:53:07.040 we have recorded that would still hold up in one 0:53:07.120 --> 0:53:11.120 hundred years. I think it would also be interesting, maybe 0:53:11.200 --> 0:53:14.360 from like an anthropological standpoint, to look at all the 0:53:14.360 --> 0:53:17.439 episodes that don't hold up and figure out why. I'm 0:53:17.440 --> 0:53:20.920 interested to see what we've said, what we've covered, what 0:53:21.080 --> 0:53:25.000 topics are just completely antiquated, you know, one hundred years 0:53:25.000 --> 0:53:27.279 from now. But I do think that that there's a 0:53:27.320 --> 0:53:29.840 pretty decent amount in those fifteen hundred episodes that you 0:53:29.840 --> 0:53:31.600 could listen to one hundred years from now and be like, 0:53:32.400 --> 0:53:34.560 get virtually the same thing out of it, at least 0:53:34.560 --> 0:53:37.080 information wise as people of to day. And I think 0:53:37.080 --> 0:53:37.839 that's pretty cool. 0:53:38.840 --> 0:53:41.520 Yeah, that'd be really interesting if one day people were like, 0:53:41.960 --> 0:53:44.560 look at this quaint show, remember when there was bitcoin 0:53:44.640 --> 0:53:46.799 and democracy things like that. 0:53:48.080 --> 0:53:51.160 Those are the days that would be wild to me. 0:53:51.480 --> 0:53:57.520 That would be absolutely completely bizarre. However, you know, it's 0:53:58.080 --> 0:54:03.880 twenty twenty three. Certainly consume media from about one hundred 0:54:03.960 --> 0:54:09.040 years ago, especially when it comes to music. I love 0:54:09.120 --> 0:54:12.680 music from that era. I honestly kind of hope that 0:54:12.719 --> 0:54:17.080 they aren't because I feel like the cultural references that 0:54:17.120 --> 0:54:19.840 we're making, and even just some of the stuff that 0:54:19.880 --> 0:54:24.240 we're saying about people in culture will have changed so vastly, 0:54:24.360 --> 0:54:26.440 like the appropriateness of all of that, will have an 0:54:26.520 --> 0:54:28.640 understanding of all of that will have changed so vastly 0:54:28.680 --> 0:54:31.480 as everything does. So I guess if they are I 0:54:31.520 --> 0:54:35.719 hope they're kind to us. I'm a very paranoid soul, 0:54:35.880 --> 0:54:39.520 and I memorize movies and stuff in case the apocalypse happens, 0:54:39.760 --> 0:54:46.400 So I'm not sure. I feel I have grim outlook 0:54:46.440 --> 0:54:47.120 for the future. 0:54:47.680 --> 0:54:53.200 But that being said, I do think it could be 0:54:53.239 --> 0:54:57.680 one of those things where people in the future are 0:54:57.760 --> 0:54:59.879 kind of like, oh, hey, look what they were doing 0:55:00.080 --> 0:55:04.920 this time, or sort of a very yeah time bubble 0:55:05.640 --> 0:55:08.600 encapsulation of this is what they were talking about, this 0:55:08.640 --> 0:55:09.520 is what they're doing. 0:55:09.719 --> 0:55:12.080 They're like, oh, yes, back in the twenty teens when 0:55:12.280 --> 0:55:14.960 the when all the kids were podcasting. 0:55:14.480 --> 0:55:18.200 Yeah yeah, or like you know in like survival horror 0:55:18.280 --> 0:55:20.520 games where you rifle through people's stuff and they have 0:55:20.560 --> 0:55:25.480 the diaries and it's such like a good example of oh, 0:55:25.520 --> 0:55:27.040 this is what they were worried about, this is what 0:55:27.080 --> 0:55:32.040 they were doing. I think podcasts could have a similar thing, 0:55:32.200 --> 0:55:36.000 hopefully not in the zombie Apocalypse. But you know, a 0:55:36.000 --> 0:55:40.040 good like snapshot of hey, this is what people were doing, 0:55:40.080 --> 0:55:41.680 what they were thinking about, what they were talking about, 0:55:41.840 --> 0:55:43.000 and that is always valuable. 0:55:43.080 --> 0:55:46.360 Like like those those little those little right time capsules 0:55:46.480 --> 0:55:48.839 are are really cool to look into. 0:55:49.600 --> 0:55:54.360 I wonder if they will exist still. I was just 0:55:54.440 --> 0:55:57.080 watching the New Blade Runner and they've just got this 0:55:57.200 --> 0:56:00.200 convenient blackout that like happened at some point in in 0:56:00.239 --> 0:56:02.759 the two movies where it's like, oh, like everything, even 0:56:02.800 --> 0:56:06.200 the hard drives and stuff like lost basically all the data. 0:56:07.080 --> 0:56:09.520 It was just the paper stuff that survived this thing. 0:56:10.120 --> 0:56:11.759 Yeah, as far as I know, no one has put 0:56:11.800 --> 0:56:14.280 us out on like like cassette tapes. 0:56:14.400 --> 0:56:17.759 So yeah, it's it's one of those things where it's 0:56:17.800 --> 0:56:22.319 hard for me to envision because there's a part of 0:56:22.360 --> 0:56:24.320 me that thinks, you know, audio is such a good 0:56:25.640 --> 0:56:27.040 for a lot of people. It's a very good way 0:56:27.080 --> 0:56:30.840 of communicating things. I feel like we still use radio 0:56:30.920 --> 0:56:33.080 in a lot of ways, and that's pretty old. When 0:56:33.080 --> 0:56:35.319 I explained to like my mom, for instance, who still 0:56:35.360 --> 0:56:37.160 doesn't know what a podcast is, I'm always like, it's 0:56:37.239 --> 0:56:42.160 radio essentially on the Internet. So it's hard for me 0:56:42.239 --> 0:56:46.360 to imagine it goes away completely, but it definitely already 0:56:46.400 --> 0:56:49.400 feels kind of like the name podcasts, for example, is 0:56:49.520 --> 0:56:52.160 very like, hmm, that's. 0:56:51.960 --> 0:56:55.359 Outdated, that's not really what it is. 0:56:56.680 --> 0:56:59.560 So I don't know, I feel I feel like something. 0:56:59.640 --> 0:57:02.880 I feel like something like it will still exist. I'm 0:57:02.920 --> 0:57:04.680 not sure it will be this form. 0:57:05.480 --> 0:57:07.120 And it's so hard to say with just the amount 0:57:07.160 --> 0:57:11.160 of data loss that humanity has experienced over you know, 0:57:11.200 --> 0:57:13.799 the course of human history, and how much more human 0:57:13.880 --> 0:57:16.120 history we would have if we hadn't lost all of 0:57:16.160 --> 0:57:19.960 that stuff. So it's easy to imagine that some kind 0:57:19.960 --> 0:57:23.920 of sunflair would take out everything and right we would 0:57:23.920 --> 0:57:27.080 have this like return to a to a kind of 0:57:27.360 --> 0:57:32.919 dark ages where nobody knows who Madonna was or has 0:57:33.080 --> 0:57:35.520 read about her. But what was that sound like? 0:57:35.600 --> 0:57:36.520 We could not tell. 0:57:37.120 --> 0:57:43.160 But it's also with the amount of backups and the 0:57:43.200 --> 0:57:47.240 way that tech has been advancing, it's also completely reasonable 0:57:47.320 --> 0:57:49.360 to think that we have it a little bit better 0:57:49.440 --> 0:57:53.520 down now than we previously have. I don't know, I mean, yeah, 0:57:53.960 --> 0:57:56.560 let's what we really Okay, Annie, what we need to 0:57:56.560 --> 0:58:00.680 do in twenty twenty three is get a record pressing. Yes, 0:58:00.800 --> 0:58:02.760 because I said Cassette tape earlier. But that's like the 0:58:02.840 --> 0:58:05.680 least permanent. That's like the least permanent of data. 0:58:05.720 --> 0:58:08.200 That's pretty good that probably run into it because thatttes 0:58:08.280 --> 0:58:11.480 is something to play them on exactly. Yeah, well you 0:58:11.560 --> 0:58:13.760 hit seth up. He'll make records for you low five 0:58:13.840 --> 0:58:18.600 mono records for reference. See our episode Handmade Records. Oh 0:58:18.760 --> 0:58:22.520 a right, Okay, Well, I think I like the idea 0:58:22.520 --> 0:58:26.200 of nothing else of yeah, some maybe idiosyncratic young person 0:58:26.240 --> 0:58:28.040 one hundred years in the future that doesn't want to 0:58:28.120 --> 0:58:32.880 learn about Pineapple from like, you know, their hollow book 0:58:33.840 --> 0:58:38.760 education system and prefers to listen to the you know, 0:58:39.480 --> 0:58:44.160 archaic musings of Annie and Lauren about the subjects. So 0:58:45.000 --> 0:58:48.240 I'll hold out hope for that, but get those records pressed. 0:58:48.560 --> 0:58:50.840 Yeah, we're on it, promptest. 0:58:52.840 --> 0:58:55.400 It all depends on if the infrastructure, you know, remains, 0:58:55.440 --> 0:59:00.320 and if people are treating it correctly and backing it 0:59:00.400 --> 0:59:02.800 up and backing it up onto physical medium. And I 0:59:02.800 --> 0:59:07.360 think there's only enough room for only certain ones, you know, 0:59:07.440 --> 0:59:10.400 not everything goes in the Library of Congress, just the 0:59:10.440 --> 0:59:14.400 important stuff. So who decides that does stuff they don't 0:59:14.400 --> 0:59:16.400 want you to know get to participate in? That is 0:59:16.440 --> 0:59:19.040 it about rank, you know, is it about listens, is 0:59:19.080 --> 0:59:22.480 it about audience size, or is it like, you know, 0:59:22.640 --> 0:59:24.680 the items that we choose to send up into space 0:59:24.760 --> 0:59:27.200 that go on that gold disc, that are important enough 0:59:27.200 --> 0:59:30.640 to us that we think maybe extraterrestrials or whatever, you know, 0:59:30.760 --> 0:59:33.640 will understand us through participating in that. 0:59:34.640 --> 0:59:36.600 It's kind of you know, let's let's look at it 0:59:36.640 --> 0:59:42.120 through comparison. Let's say a hundred years ago, you went 0:59:42.200 --> 0:59:45.640 to a you went to a Ford factory. You found 0:59:45.800 --> 0:59:49.080 some people working on that factory line, and you ask them, 0:59:49.200 --> 0:59:51.200 you know, hey, what do you what do you think 0:59:51.240 --> 0:59:53.479 is going to happen to this car? 0:59:53.920 --> 0:59:54.080 Right? 0:59:54.520 --> 0:59:56.400 They won't think in terms of well, what about this 0:59:56.480 --> 0:59:59.240 car specifically, they'll think of all the other cars they made. 0:59:59.520 --> 1:00:03.080 And the answer, as we've seen, as history has proven, 1:00:03.520 --> 1:00:07.040 is that something like those cars still very much exists 1:00:07.080 --> 1:00:12.360 in innumerable forms. In that specific car when you showed 1:00:12.400 --> 1:00:15.160 up and dropped by their lunch break and ask them, 1:00:15.320 --> 1:00:18.280 that car maybe in a museum. Right, the odds are 1:00:18.360 --> 1:00:22.000 very high that it is not always on the road 1:00:22.200 --> 1:00:26.320 as a daily driver, but the platonic form of it 1:00:26.400 --> 1:00:30.600 exists and is very much alive. So something like the 1:00:30.640 --> 1:00:35.840 ability to communicate to a large mass of people does exist, 1:00:36.680 --> 1:00:41.040 and hopefully it can preserve the depth of communication that 1:00:41.040 --> 1:00:43.880 we're able to explore when we're free from a radio 1:00:44.000 --> 1:00:47.360 clock or a social media real limit. 1:00:47.760 --> 1:00:51.760 I'm just glad we made this because this is real. 1:00:52.280 --> 1:00:54.200 Matt's holding up the stuff they don't want you to know. 1:00:54.320 --> 1:00:56.520 Book available wherever books are found. 1:00:57.000 --> 1:01:04.080 This is a book is authored by Bold and uh, 1:01:04.240 --> 1:01:06.760 it's a thing. It's a real friggin thing that you 1:01:06.760 --> 1:01:09.960 can hold and you you know, while it isn't us 1:01:10.120 --> 1:01:13.440 having a conversation, it's born from our conversations, right, and 1:01:13.520 --> 1:01:16.000 from the same research that we use to have our conversations. 1:01:16.760 --> 1:01:19.680 And it's like the spirit or the soul of the show. 1:01:20.120 --> 1:01:23.360 So it's our three men and a baby, you know. 1:01:23.440 --> 1:01:23.760 Alex. 1:01:23.840 --> 1:01:25.640 In the description for your show, I always love this. 1:01:25.720 --> 1:01:28.280 You talk about how you know, I forget the way 1:01:28.280 --> 1:01:30.360 you phrase it, but you refer to like the town dump, 1:01:30.520 --> 1:01:32.360 you know, and like where what you know, where all 1:01:32.360 --> 1:01:36.320 this stuff goes ideas you know, culture and all that stuff, 1:01:36.440 --> 1:01:38.880 and like you're never going to find a podcast in 1:01:38.920 --> 1:01:42.840 a dump, but you can find a book you a dump. 1:01:43.000 --> 1:01:46.320 Well, you'll find a whole bunch of old iPods. There's 1:01:46.360 --> 1:01:48.600 probably in a dump still somewhere. They got a lot of. 1:01:49.600 --> 1:01:51.480 If the battery is dead, you can't crack it, if 1:01:51.480 --> 1:01:54.360 you don't have the right plug, and if there's no electricity. 1:01:54.400 --> 1:01:57.600 You know, just saying they're in there, in there, but 1:01:57.960 --> 1:02:01.280 they're inaccessible. They're locked up like so much you know, 1:02:01.520 --> 1:02:04.400 geological data and an ice core. You know, if you 1:02:04.440 --> 1:02:06.600 can't get to it, does it really exist for you? 1:02:06.880 --> 1:02:09.919 But the book, you know, exists. And you know, also, 1:02:09.960 --> 1:02:13.080 let's forget about language. We're talking about long enough timeline. 1:02:13.200 --> 1:02:15.800 You know, books obviously decomposed, but language might change and 1:02:15.800 --> 1:02:17.920 it might be completely undecipherable. 1:02:18.240 --> 1:02:21.400 We're doing Beowulf, Yeah, we're doing Canterbury Tales in the 1:02:21.440 --> 1:02:24.440 original form. It also reminds me of music. You know, 1:02:24.600 --> 1:02:28.800 there are are some of the most influential songs in history. 1:02:29.840 --> 1:02:35.360 They have one admitted author, but there are many many variations, right, 1:02:35.440 --> 1:02:37.919 especially when you get into oral folklore in that form 1:02:37.920 --> 1:02:42.760 of communication. So are we then to define the existence 1:02:42.800 --> 1:02:47.200 of something by the person and the guitar they had 1:02:47.720 --> 1:02:50.600 when they first sang it? Or we and then are 1:02:50.640 --> 1:02:52.840 we going to say because that guitar is gone, because 1:02:52.840 --> 1:02:56.280 that person has passed away, that song no longer exists. 1:02:56.760 --> 1:03:00.000 I guess, I'm I guess, I'm like lazily, I'm taking 1:03:00.120 --> 1:03:03.280 the slow route to uh, what is it? The ship 1:03:03.320 --> 1:03:03.760 of thesis? 1:03:04.200 --> 1:03:06.480 The same thing? I was literally, it's yes, is it? 1:03:06.560 --> 1:03:09.280 If the thing is replaced piece by piece by piece? 1:03:09.800 --> 1:03:11.560 Is it the same thing? And that also kind of 1:03:11.600 --> 1:03:14.720 refers to audio and like a story or whatever, like 1:03:15.000 --> 1:03:17.520 is it if you're not hearing it from a person's mouth, 1:03:17.600 --> 1:03:20.160 you're hearing it digitally reconstructed? Like is it the thing? 1:03:21.560 --> 1:03:23.640 That's more of a philosophical question, But ben you hit 1:03:23.680 --> 1:03:25.360 on what I was just thinking, the exact same thing. 1:03:25.400 --> 1:03:27.760 I don't know how to use that analogy or that story, 1:03:28.080 --> 1:03:30.480 but for some reason, my brain goes there immediately. 1:03:30.680 --> 1:03:33.200 And then of course, going circling back to the very 1:03:33.240 --> 1:03:37.240 beginning of our conversation, if there comes a time, right, 1:03:37.320 --> 1:03:39.720 which I think we all believe is on the way, 1:03:39.840 --> 1:03:42.760 if there comes a time when it is possible to 1:03:43.280 --> 1:03:49.600 plausibly automate the creation of something like this, then not 1:03:49.720 --> 1:03:54.640 just this show, but every show ephemeral could just continue 1:03:55.160 --> 1:04:00.680 in perpetuity, which gets some creative people rightly terror right, 1:04:00.800 --> 1:04:04.360 and then get some accountants all a twitter paid and 1:04:04.600 --> 1:04:05.240 over the moon. 1:04:05.440 --> 1:04:05.640 Right. 1:04:06.800 --> 1:04:09.320 That's the thing, man, It's so it's so it's still 1:04:09.360 --> 1:04:12.000 so new, even though we've we've all been in the 1:04:12.000 --> 1:04:14.640 trenches on it for a lot of our adult lives. 1:04:14.840 --> 1:04:20.120 It's still so new that anybody who says they are 1:04:20.160 --> 1:04:23.600 an expert in the field is lying. They'll question is 1:04:23.600 --> 1:04:25.600 are they lying to themselves or to you? 1:04:25.640 --> 1:04:26.200 Probably both? 1:04:27.560 --> 1:04:30.360 Sorry, Alex, you got three guys who are literally paid 1:04:30.400 --> 1:04:34.440 to talk and then say, hey, tell us about yourselves. 1:04:34.800 --> 1:04:38.240 I just want to add a note here wants thank 1:04:38.280 --> 1:04:40.959 you Alex for making this show. I think all three 1:04:41.000 --> 1:04:44.720 of us are major fans of what you create. When 1:04:44.760 --> 1:04:47.240 you put out an episode of this, you and Trevor Max, 1:04:48.600 --> 1:04:51.520 the work you guys put in is just it's beautiful 1:04:51.560 --> 1:04:56.280 to listen to. You become immersed every episode in both 1:04:56.280 --> 1:04:57.600 the storytelling and sound design. 1:04:57.680 --> 1:04:58.880 It's just wonderful. 1:04:59.400 --> 1:05:02.040 Yeah, I think it's what podcasts could be. 1:05:02.480 --> 1:05:02.720 You know. 1:05:03.040 --> 1:05:06.520 I am beyond proud to play any sort of little part. 1:05:06.880 --> 1:05:08.920 And while it makes me sad that it's ending, you know, 1:05:09.000 --> 1:05:12.240 for the time being, there is a silver lining in 1:05:12.240 --> 1:05:14.200 that there's not so much of the stuff that you 1:05:14.240 --> 1:05:16.720 couldn't just make a vinyl box set of the whole 1:05:16.800 --> 1:05:17.320 damn thing. 1:05:17.480 --> 1:05:19.000 Yeah, we're not letting go of the vinyl thing. 1:05:19.160 --> 1:05:20.080 No, that's going to happen. 1:05:20.360 --> 1:05:21.120 It's a good idea. 1:05:21.280 --> 1:05:21.919 We know a guy. 1:05:23.280 --> 1:05:25.400 You know. There's just one thing that I just was 1:05:25.440 --> 1:05:27.400 thinking of. It's not a question, but it's just a 1:05:27.400 --> 1:05:30.080 little footnote on something that Noel said, and it echoed 1:05:30.080 --> 1:05:31.920 a conversation I had a couple of years back with 1:05:32.000 --> 1:05:35.880 a kind of Ian Nagoski about how we think of 1:05:36.120 --> 1:05:40.000 preservation efforts or like archiving efforts, as we all have. 1:05:40.120 --> 1:05:41.360 We have a tendency to think of them as the 1:05:41.400 --> 1:05:45.720 sort of responsibility of these big cultural institutions like Nash 1:05:45.920 --> 1:05:48.400 shooting stuff out in this space, so the Library of Congress, 1:05:48.920 --> 1:05:54.840 but so much archiving of ephemeral media that I've come across, 1:05:54.840 --> 1:05:59.160 like early television, early radio, or obscure music and all 1:05:59.240 --> 1:06:03.280 kinds of other things. It's very often is from like 1:06:03.360 --> 1:06:06.000 someone that worked on it, or descended someone that worked 1:06:06.040 --> 1:06:08.160 on that project, or a fan of Van you know 1:06:08.680 --> 1:06:12.080 that was just recording that day, you know, on their 1:06:12.160 --> 1:06:16.480 VCR and got something or you know whatever. And I wonder, 1:06:16.520 --> 1:06:19.400 if you know, I would hate to see a world 1:06:19.520 --> 1:06:22.120 like this but there's one hundred years from now and 1:06:22.440 --> 1:06:23.160 stuff they don't want. 1:06:23.240 --> 1:06:23.400 You know. 1:06:23.440 --> 1:06:25.080 It's like the book is out there, but they can't 1:06:25.080 --> 1:06:27.560 find any record of the podcast. And then one fan 1:06:28.960 --> 1:06:32.320 eden's great great granddaughter comes forward or writer's great great 1:06:32.320 --> 1:06:37.120 grandson comes forward, like I have I have the first episode. 1:06:38.000 --> 1:06:40.560 Yeah, some of them may be actually because we don't 1:06:40.560 --> 1:06:44.120 think to do that. Because it's streaming, it's everywhere all 1:06:44.160 --> 1:06:45.480 the time, until it's not. 1:07:01.600 --> 1:07:07.880 Thanks to Matt, Ben, Noel, Annie, Lauren, Robert, Joe, Holly, Tracy, Josh, 1:07:07.960 --> 1:07:11.000 and Chuck for talking with me this episode and for 1:07:11.080 --> 1:07:13.680 all their support of this show since it's very inception. 1:07:14.720 --> 1:07:17.680 Thanks also to Trevor Young and my brother Max who 1:07:17.760 --> 1:07:21.080 joined me as co hosts in the second season. And 1:07:21.240 --> 1:07:23.960 more gratitude than I can hope to express to the 1:07:24.000 --> 1:07:27.840 countless guests, friends, and especially listeners that have made this 1:07:28.040 --> 1:07:33.720 entire project possible. I never really like long goodbyes. But 1:07:34.960 --> 1:07:37.800 what do you think we should do next? There's certainly 1:07:37.800 --> 1:07:40.880 no shortage of stories left to tell about everything lost, 1:07:41.440 --> 1:07:46.600 Transient and Ephemeral. You can write Twist directly at Ephemeral 1:07:46.640 --> 1:07:50.160 at iHeartMedia dot com, and we're on social media at 1:07:50.320 --> 1:07:53.440 ephemeral show. Avida's aim. 1:07:55.320 --> 1:07:58.560 Always at worst. 1:08:00.120 --> 1:08:01.440 I don't doubt. 1:08:01.240 --> 1:08:05.800 It, but I realize it's true. 1:08:07.040 --> 1:08:12.520 So I just dropped into Say Goodbye.